In a surprising move this morning, YouTube published a change to the Community Guidelines that govern what content creators can and cannot do on the platform. Under this new rule, creators that —knowingly or unknowingly— violate any of these guidelines will now get a chance to right their wrong and lift the warning from their channel.
The announcement was made via a video posted to the official YouTube Creators channel and the YouTube Official Blog which included detailed instructions on what to expect and what creators should do in case of a violation warning. Under these revised guidelines, creators who receive a warning for policy violations now have an intriguing option at their disposal — an educational training course.
Here’s the great part: once the creator successfully completes the course, YouTube will remove the warning from their channel, just as long as they don’t violate the same policy for the next 90 days. It’s like a friendly handshake agreement to play by the rules. However, should the creator fail to follow through, the video in question will be removed and a strike will be applied to the channel.
If the creator violates the same policy again, but after the 90 period, the video in question will be removed and the creator will be issued another warning. However – and surprisingly – another chance will be given to take another training course and once again wipe the warning from the channel.
We believe this update will help the vast majority of creators who strive to produce content that complies with our Community Guidelines, and will help keep YouTube a safe and responsible platform for everyone.
This change represents a significant shift in how YouTube deals with policy violations. In the past, YouTube would move to immediately remove the video in question and apply a lifetime warning to the channel. Now, it’s all about education and second chances.
It is clear that monetization is a big motive for the policy change. Previously, policy warnings were more general and affected the entire channel, whereas with the new policy, warnings are more specific on what was breached. Giving creators a chance to fix warnings before they become strikes will allow for more content to stay up on YouTube and avoid the 3-strike rule that has been known to get channels terminated from the platform.