New YouTube Community Guidelines Updates – Jan 2019
Strengthening Community Guidelines
Hello Creators, It's news flash time. Let's start with the Community Guidelines Updates. so there's a broad effort going on to prevent abuse on the platform. something, YouTube have always been doing but one of the things that YouTube are focusing on now is strengthening the enforcement of our Community Guidelines policies.
The Enforcement is also more consistent
One of the things that creators may not immediately realize is that those Community Guidelines apply to all of the content that you put on the platform. So it's not just your videos but it's also your thumbnails, links to other sites and what we want to make sure is that all that stuff is consistent with the guidelines.
As an example for a long time, we've prohibited linking to external sites that have pornography or malware. If we detect an outbound link to a site that is not consistent with YouTube guidelines. Then that will result in the link being removed but also results in a Community Guidelines strike.
You May Know, after you receive a certain number of strikes your channel could be terminated. so you really want to be careful about where you link to from your videos.
Another example is that for a long time we've also rejected custom thumbnails that violate the Community Guidelines, so what typically happens. If we detect that the thumbnail is not consistent with those guidelines. we will reject that thumbnail if we see repeat offenses from the same channel, we will then often remove the privilege of being able to use custom thumbnails for some period of time.
If we see repeated violations beyond that or egregious violations it could also result in a channel termination. So be really careful about your custom thumbnails. especially like an egregious violation would be if it included pornography in it. But that's not that's the most egregious.
There's also like other types of thumbnails that are not approved or characteristics that are not approved and I'll link below for the specific Community Guidelines.
One other quick point, I would make is not only should you be mindful of your thumbnails to make sure that it's consistent with the Community Guidelines, but it's also a really important thing to help your videos get discovered. Because what you want is a thumbnail that will represent the content but also is appealing to viewers.
And not only will we remove the thumbnail, if we find the thumbnail is outside the guidelines that we provide for the Community Guidelines. If YouTube finds that the thumbnail is misleading. it also gets recommended less so your kind of ideal spot if you've got a thumbnail that's appealing, but it's also accurate and representative of the content.
Also for sure you know abides by the Community Guidelines. I digress so more about the Community Guidelines challenges and pranks. Well many of us enjoy a good prank video from time to time. But there are types of challenges in prank videos that we won't allow and we'll remove an issue a strike.
There are some that we will allow but we will age restrict, who can see it and we've gotten some feedback from creators that “Hey can you be a little bit more specific about what you consider harmful and dangerous. when it comes to a challenge or a prank.
Let me give you some more details, here's an example of a challenge that would not be allowed on the platform would be removed would result in the strike to a channel. If there's a challenge that presents the risk of death or features a minor participating and it poses an imminent risk of severe injury to that minor that's just not allowed period will be removed will be struck.
Here's another example of something that is just not allowed at all. If you have a challenge or a prank that involves an unsuspecting victim believing that they are in physical danger that's not that goes beyond the realm of what's allowed.
If the challenge or prank involves real physical harm results in real physical harm or involves emotional distress to minors. okay so that's those are just not allowed period now, there are other kinds of challenges and pranks that are allowed but then are age restricted so they may not be accessible by all YouTube viewers.
what are examples, So if there are adults in a dangerous situation with high risk of injury that could be age restricted it may still be allowed but it might be an age restriction? if the primary purpose is educational, scientific, documentary or art but it depicts dangerous challenges that could be age restricted.
If it's gratuitously graphics it may not even be allowed. but if it's not gratuitously graphics and even if its primary purpose is for entertainment, documentary, science or art. But it depicts dangerous challenges that could be age restricted.
another one that could be age restricted, if it involves a lot of fake blood gore gruesome injuries simulated death. YouTube is the unsuspecting victim is an adult that could be age-restricted for some people. They might be thinking whoa!!! these are a lot of rules like maybe you've been on the platform for a long time.
You just weren't aware of these restrictions or these guidelines or you weren't aware that reinforce it the way we have been or will be even more actively so during this initial period since we're just announcing it around now or bias it's going to be just to remove videos and not issue a strike.
You know right away, this will give creators a little bit of time to kind of get used to the new enforcement expectations. If you have a video that was uploaded prior to this announcement. It may still be removed but we wouldn't issue a strike because maybe I think we're trying to kind of be as gradual and kind of reason as we can.
So you don't feel like, Hey you know I uploaded this thing two years ago it was never a problem and then I got the strike. but it could still be removed if your content is rejected or you do receive a strike. you will always get an email alert and you'll also see it in your channel settings in the YouTube studio.
That's another reason why a lot of creators the email address that they've given us that's associated with the channel. Sometimes is not an email that they check, maybe they created it like years ago so you may want to review that and update your email. so that you can get these kinds of important notifications and decisions.
If you feel like hey my content was removed or I received a strike but I read the guidelines and I'm absolutely sure that this meets the community guidelines, you can still appeal it and we will re-review it.
What we recommend. It is right now is a great time to review all of your videos, all of your thumbnails, all of your links. make sure they're their kind of tip-top and then you can just avoid any of this affecting you. But hopefully, the result of this is that the creators, that are producing original content that viewers really like, that's responsible, safe and appropriate.
Well, you'll get more opportunities and we can kind of protect the viewer experience which in the long run is good for creators too. okay!!! so that is all the stuff about the Community Guidelines.
Thumbnail A/B experiment
We talked in late last year, about an experiment where we were testing a potential new feature where we show more than one thumbnail. Then try to optimize which thumbnail is shown, based on the likelihood of the viewer to not just click on it but also watch your video.
so that started out with a very small number of channels, I think YouTube did it with 5-10 channels and so now YouTube is expanding that the results were pretty good. People seem to like it, a lot of the creators that participated in the thumbnails that they thought would perform better.
YouTube is expanding that pilot to get more channels to participate. it's still a pretty small early stage thing. but hopefully, you are one step closer to validating the idea the technology behind it the way the optimization works. and then we can make it available to more and more creators.
one along we also remember last year we talked about this self-certification idea, where rather than relying entirely on the automated classifiers to determine if a video is appropriate for advertising or not. YouTube wants to experiment with the idea of creators rating. their videos and basically filling out a pretty detailed report at the time of upload.
You know about what language is involved if there's you know guns in the video if there's any nudity or things that advertisers care deeply about to determine. if they think their ads are they would like their ad campaign to run against that content and so that experiment has been going pretty well.
It's also expanding and we're getting more creators involved and you know like all these experiments, we just like to start small and see how it works. but that's moving along so I know a lot of people ask Hey, what's going on with that idea seems to have merit and we are continuing to push on the one thing.
I will say though is that, it's not like Oh you do this and you automatically get ads. it's more like we want a more accurate read on the video and also it requires a little bit of a track record from the Creator. so if we find that a creator is always saying OH Yeah there's none of this in any of the video and then we find it that's really bad for the platform and it's bad for the Creator.
because I think it's a really cool program and option. but it also requires the Creator to really be as accurate as possible with their ratings. but we'll keep you posted as that experiment moves on next.
New YouTube Studio Beta Cool Features!
New Launched Cool Features of YouTube Studio Beta
The number still count and good new features in a studio beta.
you can now upload and download subtitles and closed captions files from directly from the studio beta.
you can also choose the mid role at a place from the studio beta editor.
and you can choose at formats directly from the studio beta so these are some top complaints about the studio beta. we heard you have prioritized it.
Those are now launched and then just as a sneak peek, there is some new stuff coming to the studio beta probably in the next few months:
YouTube are gonna add this really cool strikes card on the dashboard. so if you get a strike you can very quickly see it in the studio beta dashboard and take action right away.
Like if it's a copyright strike you can try to address. it if it's a Community Guidelines strike you can review it and either address it or appeal it. or just know okay you know you got that strike and that will just increase transparency
YouTube is also working on supporting info cards in the studio beta editor. so you just add them directly from the studio beta editor.
They are making some improvements to the ideas for your widget on the studio beta dashboard. making a little bit more targeted. making the recommendations a little bit more personalized,
Adding support for the super chat in the studio beta and what does that say ooh memberships so card ran out of storage.
YouTube is working on is support for memberships in this geo base so a lot of stuff launched in the studio beta recently and a lot of stuff coming very soon
YouTube will also start Auto upgrading more creators to the studio beta. which all it means is that your default studio will be the studio beta as part of this kind of broader rollout of the product. You can always go back to classic. there'll be a little link in the bottom left but we strongly encourage you to get used to the studio beta to give us feedback.
I think that's all for this week so have a great week and keep it real alright!!!if you have any doubts, so put it in the comments below and keep it real we'll see you next time.
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