YouTube has now begun a new initiative to tighten the rules on which videos can be shown and which can’t.
New rules set by YouTube include the following:
- Sexually suggestive content, including partial nudity and sexual humor
- Violence, including display of serious injury and events related to violent extremism
- Inappropriate language, including harassment, profanity and vulgar language
- Promotion of drugs and regulated substances, including selling, use and abuse of such items
- Controversial or sensitive subjects and events, including subjects related to war, political conflicts, natural disasters and tragedies, even if graphic imagery is not shown.
Some YouTubers that currently earn most of their money from their videos are concerned about the new change. The American video-sharing website started to remove content that had not met their terms on late Wednesday night, early Thursday morning.
American video blogger and YouTube star Philip DeFranco had shared his thoughts on this by creating a YouTube video titled “YouTube Is Shutting Down My Channel and I’m Not Sure What To Do”. In the video, Philip reveals how he has already gained warning from YouTube about his videos. The language and topics he covers have led to his videos being flagged as “not advertiser friendly”.
DeFranco had tweeted the site on their official Twitter page to complain about the sudden change. The company had replied back to state that there was “no policy change”.
https://twitter.com/PhillyD/status/771026030442090496
Google mentioned to Newsbeat that the change to their conditions is only to the way they notify users.
Luke Cutforth, or commonly known by his alias “LukeIsNotSexy” had also posted a video about this change. In his video he had stated that YouTubers will have to “decide between advertisers and mental health”. Cutforth had posted a video 2 years ago about his depression which had been demonetized by the site. Luke had further said how he is upset over the fact that depression cannot be openly spoken about on YouTube anymore without it being flagged as a censored subject. The full video can be found here:
So, if you wake up tomorrow morning and find out some of your favourite YouTubers have been uploading significantly less, it’s just because they’re sticking to the YouTube guidelines. Give us a little bit of you’re thoughts on this over on our official twitter page @CelebMix