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YouTube is shaving off more of the smaller channels from its monetization program:
YouTube is tightening the rules around its partner program and raising the requirements that a channel/creator must meet in order to monetize videos. Effective immediately, to apply for monetization (and have ads attached to videos), creators must have tallied 4,000 hours of overall watch time on their channel within the past 12 months and have at least 1,000 subscribers. YouTube will enforce the new eligibility policy for all existing channels as of February 20th, meaning that channels that fail to meet the threshold will no longer be able to make income from ads.
Previously, the standard for joining YouTube's Partner Program was 10,000 public views — without any specific requirement for annual viewing hours. This change will no doubt make it harder for new, smaller channels to reach monetization, but YouTube says it's an important way of buying itself more time to see who's following the company's guidelines and disqualify "bad actors."
[...] The new, stricter policy comes after Logan Paul, one of YouTube's star creators and influencers, published a video that showed a dead body in Japan's Aokigahara forest. Last week, YouTube kicked Paul off its Google Preferred ad program and placed his YouTube Red original programming efforts on hold.
Anyone under 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 total hours watched annually would probably be making a pittance anyway. This change could allow YouTube to put more human eyes on the unruly but popular channels, so it can censor suicide forest vlogs (NSFW) in record time.
Today Youtube sent out the following message to a number of customers:
Today we are announcing changes to the YouTube Partner Program (YPP). While our goal remains to keep the YPP open to as many channels as possible, we recognize we need more safeguards in place to protect creator revenue across the YouTube ecosystem.
Under the new eligibility requirements announced today, your YouTube channel, [Name] is no longer eligible for monetization because it doesn't meet the new threshold of 4,000 hours of watchtime within the past 12 months and 1,000 subscribers. As a result, your channel will lose access to all monetization tools and features associated with the YouTube Partner Program on February 20, 2018 unless you surpass this threshold in the next 30 days. Accordingly, this email serves as 30 days notice that your YouTube Partner Program terms are terminated.
Apparently niche content and low volume community channels, is not as profitable as hosting porn.
Who knew?
Previously: YouTube Changes its Partner Program -- Channels Need 10k Views for Adverts
Related: YouTube's "Ad-Friendly" Content Policy may Push one of its Biggest Stars off the Site
Google Fails to Stop Major Brands From Pulling Ads From YouTube
In Attempt to Achieve YouTube Stardom, Woman Accidentally Kills Her Boyfriend
YouTube Cracks Down on Weird Content Aimed at Kids
1600 Vine Street
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 18 2018, @04:11AM (4 children)
The change from youtube was not in response to that clown; it was in response to all of the ElsaGate spammy channels aimed at children, so that they cant earn any money before they are discovered and shut-down. They have automated systems for reposting questionable content constantly, this gives the killer bots some time to weed them out first.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 18 2018, @05:20AM
Indeed, considering how many views he had been getting prior to showing the body and all the joking around, this rule wouldn't have applied to him anyways. He gets at least that many views in a week.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by cubancigar11 on Thursday January 18 2018, @05:43AM (1 child)
Yes, thank you. In fact, this current move encourages people like Mr. Paul by making them more desperate.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 18 2018, @12:56PM
Good. Maybe somebody can film his dangling corpse.
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Thursday January 18 2018, @04:58PM
I'd like to mod you +1 Informative because that makes a lot more sense, but I believe in my sig so I went digging instead.
Unfortunately, both TFA and Google's top [techcrunch.com] two [theguardian.com] news results for the rule change clearly flag Logan Paul's "suicide forest" video as the reason behind these changes.
But it still makes no sense why. Google's announcement [googleblog.com] doesn't flag any specific incidents as the reason behind the change.
So I'm going to guess that you're probably right, and the news sites are all probably wrong. One thing is for sure: the specific reason behind the change is definitely open to interpretation.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?