- Hello, Insiders.
Today we're gonna talk about a more serious topic,
and we call that the creator responsibility policy,
and what that means,
and how you should think about it as a creator.
I want to just call out beforehand,
before we get into the details,
that this is not a new policy, this is an existing policy.
Our goal is really to make sure
that creators understand our policies.
We've spent a lot of time on monetization,
community guidelines, et cetera.
I think everybody on this channel has had a chance
to comment on them and look at the updates, et cetera.
This is a different kind of policy.
This is one where we hope, and actually do, rarely use it.
But this is in cases where the actions that a creator takes
off platform or on the platform,
brings significant harm to the whole ecosystem,
including the reputation of the creator community,
with advertisers, with the media industry overall,
and most importantly, really with viewers,
and how viewers think about YouTube and about creators.
So for a little bit of background, back in 2018,
we introduced this policy.
And we'll have a link in the description
so that you can look at it.
And again, it's for rare events when creators' actions
harm the entire community, and are pretty egregious.
This is not something that the normal community guidelines
or the advertiser-friendly guidelines
can cover sufficiently.
What we're talking about here
is especially egregious behavior that could really harm
the entire YouTube ecosystem.
At the end of the day, we don't want one creator's actions
to impact the ability to earn revenue
and be successful for all creators.
So I wanted to cover a few examples of the kind of things
that we've seen in the past and where we've taken action,
not always publicly, sometimes publicly.
And just to think about as a creator, that really,
you want to make sure that you're in the quest
for growing your channel and for views, et cetera.
You don't really trip over into the territory where
you're harming all creators, and the platform overall.
So here's some examples.
So one was, if you intended to cause
malicious harm to others, so serious harm.
Another example is participating in abuse or violence,
or being extraordinarily cruel,
or participating in fraudulent or deceptive behavior
linked to real world harm.
An area that sometimes comes up is pranks.
And we all know that sometimes pranks
can go a little too far, but we're talking about pranks
that go significantly too far.
And in the quest of getting a really viral prank,
there's always a risk that the overall ecosystem suffers.
And so we want to avoid that.
The next example is content that promotes violence
or hate towards a group.
Again, violence or resulting real-world harm
is something that we obviously have to take action on.
So again, as I mentioned, these are rare occurrences.
And as we think about this policy,
we really hope that it rarely gets applied.
And there's of course, a process within YouTube
to evaluate the actions that were taken,
including talking to the creator.
And so this is not something
that's designed to happen often.
Okay, so let's talk about the kinds of actions
that we've taken in the past and can take in the future,
hopefully not, but you never know.
So the first thing we could do is,
if the creator has a YouTube original,
that could be put on hold or canceled.
Some creators have access to YouTube spaces,
to film, and to meet other creators,
and that could be restricted.
Another area that I'm sure some of you have heard about
is restrictions on monetization.
So, in some cases, there could be a 30 day suspension.
It could last longer than 30 days.
And that really restricts the ability of the creator
to earn revenue from ads,
from other sources of revenue as we develop them,
and can be removed from YouTube select lineups as well,
as another monetization penalty.
The last area that we sometimes use
in reaction to these kind of actions by creators
is video recommendations.
So maybe a creator's channel is no longer eligible
to be recommended on YouTube,
and not on the homepage or trending tab,
or watch next recommendations.
So, obviously, these are a pretty severe consequences.
And, as I mentioned, we really don't want to use them.
So we're hoping that creators exercise judgment.
And we understand that obviously,
you need to grow your channel and be creative
and try new things, to try things that other people
haven't done, and get your videos to go viral.
But there's some common sense that could be used
to not cross the line.
And really the litmus test is impacting all other creators
by the actions that an individual creator takes.
And that's what we're focused on
and we want to make sure we avoid.
And so that's one of the reasons why we're creating
this video, for example,
so that there's more awareness of that situation.
So moving forward,
we really hope that we'll continue to be able to
educate creators on the responsibility.
YouTube gives you a voice,
and hopefully you use that voice in good ways
and not in a way that can harm the rest of the community
of both creators and viewers, as well as advertisers.
As always, we're always interested
in the creator insider nation's opinions and thoughts.
I'm sure you can think of a few cases
where we've used this policy in the past
where creators have been demonetized
or in other ways impacted by it.
And so if you have questions or thoughts or concerns,
please leave them in the comments below.
We'll do our best to respond to some of them,
and certainly read them and see if there's some tweaks
that we need to do.
One more area you can give us feedback on
is if you want to get more notice,
and that we should cover more about specific cases
and actions that we've taken,
which we do today to some degree, but we don't always do it.
And so if that's important to really hear about these cases,
let us know in the comments as well.
And other than that, keep it real.