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In Wake of Logan Paul Controversy, YouTube Tightens Monetization Thresholds for Smaller Channels

Accepted submission by takyon at 2018-01-17 05:38:31
Techonomics

YouTube is shaving off more of the smaller channels [theverge.com] 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 [theverge.com]. Last week, YouTube kicked Paul off its Google Preferred ad program [polygon.com] 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 [liveleak.com] (NSFW) in record time.

Previously: YouTube Changes its Partner Program -- Channels Need 10k Views for Adverts [soylentnews.org]

Related: YouTube's "Ad-Friendly" Content Policy may Push one of its Biggest Stars off the Site [soylentnews.org]
Google Fails to Stop Major Brands From Pulling Ads From YouTube [soylentnews.org]
In Attempt to Achieve YouTube Stardom, Woman Accidentally Kills Her Boyfriend [soylentnews.org]
YouTube Cracks Down on Weird Content Aimed at Kids [soylentnews.org]
1600 Vine Street [soylentnews.org]


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