Content Creators, Marketers Welcome YouTube’s new Monetization Policy
Following the threat of boycott from top advertisers due to hateful content, YouTube has now redefined the framework of content monetization and updated its advertising policy for content creators. The new policy will prevent content with hate messages or discrimination of any type from featuring ads and monetizing it.
published on:
In its latest community guidelines update, the company has specified what constitutes ineligible content for advertising:
Hateful Content
Content that promotes discrimination or disparages or humiliates an individual or group of people on the basis of the individual’s or group’s race, ethnicity, or ethnic origin, nationality, religion, disability, age, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity, or other characteristic associated with systematic discrimination or marginalization.
Inappropriate use of Family Entertainment Characters
Content that depicts family entertainment characters engaged in violent, sexual, vile, or otherwise inappropriate behavior, even if done for comedic or satirical purposes.
Incendiary and Demeaning Content
Content that is gratuitously incendiary, inflammatory, or demeaning. For example, video content that uses gratuitously disrespectful language that shames or insults an individual or group.
Terming the new YouTube ad policy as a welcome move, Sahil Chopra, CEO and Founder, iCubesWire said, “The recent policy of YouTube to prevent monetization of hateful content is a welcome move as it filters out content that hurts the sentiments of people in any form or is fake information creating uproar among people. Any content that is inappropriate for viewers and family audience to watch will be checked in a more disciplinary manner. As per YouTube’s Terms of Service and community guidelines, anything which promotes discrimination against an individual or group of people, or content that depicts family characters in a tasteless manner will be touted as unworthy for advertising. This step will enable people to watch content that is comparatively more refined, truthful and is viewer friendly. It is a progressive move as everything which goes live on the platform in terms of content or feature ads will go through a stringent review which will automatically filter out anything not worthy. Practicing this ad policy will make YouTube a better and safer platform for the users of all age and interests to view the content of their desirability without falling into the hateful pit.”
As per the new policy, content creators won’t be able to turn on monetization until they hit 10,000 lifetime views on their channel. YouTube believes that this threshold will give them a chance to gather enough information about the credibility of the featured content.
Stating that content creators will eventually adapt to the new monetization policy which will keep on getting better with time, Omer Basith, Co-founder, Jossbox commented, “YouTube’s newest update claims that better advertiser controls have helped ad revenues stabilize for a lot of content creators since March, but there is still a lot to do. The problem arises because anytime an automated system is used to index content, there is always a risk that some of it will be wrongly flagged. Also, how inappropriate is inappropriate? The newest update from YouTube attempts to explain their policies better. YouTube reserves the right to classify content as hateful; however, comedy and satire may be exempt. (Simply stating comedic intent is not sufficient). Occasional use of profanity and inappropriate language is acceptable if the context supports it. Harmful acts and violence may be acceptable in news, documentary, artistic or video game content. Sexual content may be acceptable if it appears in an educational format. Like most things, the systems will get better with time and creators will adapt.”
