Fury as YouTube slashes advertising from thousands of channels

YouTube star Logan Paul 
YouTube star Logan Paul  Credit: AFP

YouTube stands accused of cutting income for its vloggers after it dropped advertising from thousands of channels in an attempt to weed out "bad actors" on the website. 

The video sharing website has changed its rules about which channels are allowed to have adverts for the second time in nine months. The YouTube "partner programme", previously allowed channels to host adverts if they had 10,000 lifetime views, allowing them to take a slice of the advertising revenue.

But the changes require 4,000 hours of watchtime in the past 12 months and 1,000 subscribers, along with 10,000 lifetime views, before adverts are displayed. The new policy raises the bar for vloggers and is the second time in less than a year the rules have changed, having only introduced the 10,000-view rule last April.

A YouTube spokesman said the move would benefit all who use the website and stop spammers from "taking advantage" of creators, "while continuing to reward those who make our platform great". 

"These higher standards will also help us prevent potentially inappropriate videos from monetizing which can hurt revenue for everyone," read a statement published on YouTube's Creator blog on Tuesday evening. 

Popular YouTube vlogger Zoella
Popular YouTube vlogger Zoella will not be affected by the changes

The announcement led to outcry on social media as vloggers claimed the website, which is estimated to be worth up to £50 billion, is punishing smaller channels for the mistakes of YouTube celebrities who have put the website in hot water in recent months. 

Users suggested that they were being punished for the actions of Logan Paul, once one of YouTube's most popular celebrities, who made a video in which he showed the body of a man believed to have committed suicide in Japan’s Aokigahara Forest. Mr Paul has over 15 million subscribers and is understood to have made a fortune through a variety of commercial partnerships brought about from his YouTube fame. 

On Monday YouTube removed Paul from its Preferred premium advertising programme in response to the controversy but refused to rule out any further collaboration the US star. 

It was not the first controversy to rattle advertisers. Less than twelve months before, the former "King of YouTube", a Swedish games vlogger who calls himself PewDiePie, was criticised for using racist language in videos with premium advertising. 

2017 spelled several disasters for YouTube as advertisers - including the British government - withdrew funding after their branding appeared on terrorist propaganda videos. YouTube was quizzed on whether it was doing enough to police videos that it gained revenue from.

The changes, which were announced on Tuesday evening, could lessen the chance of similar controversies, without YouTube needing to police high traffic videos to make sure adverts aren't appearing on abusive, violent or offensive material. 

When channels reach the required amount of subscriptions and watch hours, they will be re-evaluated to make sure they comply with YouTube's policies, meaning some channels may never return to the programme. 

It said it will ensure that videos legible for its most expensive advertising will be watched by humans before they go online in the US by mid February, and by March for the rest of the world. 

"Google Preferred will be manually reviewed and ads will only run on videos that have been verified to meet our ad-friendly guidelines," it stated.

YouTube said that the number of channels making over six figures had risen over 40 per cent year-over-year.

Andrew Tolentino, a mobile app designer said that the changes were "selfish".  "They don't support the smaller YouTubers that help grow the community," he added. 

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