On Wednesday, popular YouTuber Philip DeFranco posted a screenshot of a notification showing that one of his YouTube videos was to be de-monetised.
Seems like @Youtube will be stripping most of my advertising from now on. Oh well. I'm not going to censor myself.
Many people assumed this indicated a change in policy on which videos could carry advertisements. Soon, people were piling on over what they saw as censorship.
before and after the new youtube policies #YouTubeIsOverParty
what the future of youtube is going to look like #YouTubeIsOverParty
Basically. #YoutubeIsOverParty
who's going bankrupt after they start enforcing these new guidelines? #YouTubeIsOverParty
trying to make youtube a PG site when the MINIMUM google sign up age is 13?? where is the logic #YouTubeIsOverParty
YouTube's policy on de-monetising videos is actually longstanding.
But it seems YouTube has reworded their guidelines recently/is putting them into action more
The platform has merely changed its process of notifying creators when their videos are de-monetised. Previously, this information could only be found at the video-level analytics. Now it is available in the user's video manager.
In this case, it seems likely that DeFranco's video had been de-monetised because it contained swearing and discussed Brock Turner, the perpetrator at the centre of the infamous Stanford rape case.
YouTube reached out to make this point to DeFranco. However, he took it as an opportunity to call out the platform over its policy.
And within hours, #YouTubeIsOverParty was trending.
Phil lookin at this hashtag #YouTubeIsOverParty
did youtube forget they made this or #YoutubeIsOverParty
sneak peak screenshots of this years Youtube Rewind #youtubeisoverparty
#YoutubeIsOverParty good for you youtube
A YouTube spokesperson said: "While our policy of de-monetizing videos due to advertiser-friendly concerns hasn’t changed, we’ve recently improved the notification and appeal process to ensure better communication."