Posted in: Games, Video Games, YouTube | Tagged: logan paul, youtube

YouTube Updates Their Policies After Logan Paul's Multiple Blunders

Published Sat, 10 Feb 2018 20:45:30 -0600

Last updated Sat, 10 Feb 2018 20:52:00 -0600

Thousands of content creators are about to have serious issues with Logan Paul beyond making fun of suicide. YouTube has released an update to their policies and gone over their changes in this blog post they sent out late yesterday, detailing new measures they can now take to "prevent harm" to the YouTube community. Below is a snippet from those guidelines, in which you can see YouTube has basically set it up so they have a built-in Panic button to eject anyone from a partnership they deem unfit.

We've long had a set of Community Guidelines that act as rules of the road for what creators can share on our platform and a set of Ad-Friendly Guidelines for what they can monetize. We also have a system of strikes we use to enforce those guidelines which can ultimately result in a channel's termination. But in very rare instances, we need a broader set of tools at our disposal that can be used more quickly and effectively than the current system of guidelines and strikes.

Today, we're outlining additional steps we may take beyond our current strike systems when channels upload videos that result in widespread harm to our community of creators, viewers and advertisers.

Premium Monetization Programs, Promotion and Content Development Partnerships. We may remove a channel from Google Preferred and also suspend, cancel or remove a creator's YouTube Original.

Monetization and Creator Support Privileges. We may suspend a channel's ability to serve ads, ability to earn revenue and potentially remove a channel from the YouTube Partner Program, including creator support and access to our YouTube Spaces.

Video Recommendations. We may remove a channel's eligibility to be recommended on YouTube, such as appearing on our home page, trending tab or watch next.

So why is this a problem for other channels? Like all forms of art and entertainment, content is subjective. What you find offensive may not phase me and vice versa, but that's part of being exposed to different kinds of content on YouTube and figuring out your taste. Clearly what Logan Paul did was horrendous, and some of the videos he followed up with showed he didn't learn a thing, so it's clear why he's getting kicked off of partnership status. However, it stands to reason that somewhere down the road, YouTube could use this as their own "Get Out Of Jail Free" Card and kill partnerships with other channels that, while they might not be breaking any guidelines, their content could be deemed questionable for any number of reasons. And with the new policies being vague in certain areas, it's pretty clear at some point this could be used as an excuse to simply cut ties and stop paying out high-profile channels who may be getting a bigger slice of the pie than YouTube may want to pay out.

So if your favorite YouTube channel suddenly finds themselves out of the partnership program and totally demonitized for creating the content they always have, you now know which "maverick" to hold responsible.

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