YouTube Question Soooo this just happened....

[Bubblegummonsters]

Got an email from Youtube to say they've demonatized my channel due to breaching their new policies.

I did get a warning back in December saying that some of my content was 'sensational' or had 'keyword stuffing'. Despite speaking to a representive I still had no idea what videos were the issue.
I had a choice, I either deleted my videos completely or decided which were the offending ones. I decided to try removing some that I thought may fall into the catagory but alas it seems that this didn't do the trick.

So now I have to bascially remove eighty percent of my content. My question is, can I just set it to private. The Youtube email says you have to either edit or delete the videos.

Anyone know the answer.

Thanks in advance,

Peter

 

[MediaMan]

I still had no idea what videos were the issue.

I thought YouTube was all about open discovery of content violations now? Even showing you exactly which videos, and where in the videos the violations occur?

YouTube Will Provide More Context on Policy Violations with Two Coming Updates

The updates will make it easier for users to understand policy violations, and how to address them.

www.socialmediatoday.com

 

[KS Moto Cafe]

So now I have to bascially remove eighty percent of my content. My question is, can I just set it to private. The Youtube email says you have to either edit or delete the videos.

You have to "delete forever" or use the YT inhouse editing software to cut out the segments that YT is having issues with - given that it is more time consuming to filter through hundreds if not thousands of video hours and still unsure if it will make the cut from YT Policy, it will be easier to just delete forever and basically restart.

OR you just keep the channel demonetized and start a third party crowd sourcing to have your viewers financially support your channel outside of YT (more risky).

I had my YT channel demonetized last fall and within 30 days (after deleting the few videos that made my channel demonetized), I was back on the payroll.

 

[on a dark night]

Whilst I've not been monetized I did have an issue with the vagueness of what youtube considered to be an offending video.
A video was taken off and I was warned about a video containing sexual content .
I was absolutely baffled and went through the video with a fine tooth comb so I could appeal it.
There was no audio related to any sexual acts or imagery- the video was three true horror tales about intruders , one had snakes in it and my partner thinks the snake tale may be responsible as it had an image of a snake on a womans face (her apartment had snake slithering through the openings)
Before I could appeal though the video was actually put back on .
It'd be nice though if youtube could put a time reference so you at least know what you're looking for when its incredibly vague.

 

[Bubblegummonsters]

I thought YouTube was all about open discovery of content violations now? Even showing you exactly which videos, and where in the videos the violations occur?

YouTube Will Provide More Context on Policy Violations with Two Coming Updates

The updates will make it easier for users to understand policy violations, and how to address them.

www.socialmediatoday.com

Wow that would be useful, I guess they forgot to use that for my channel.

 

[Bubblegummonsters]

You have to "delete forever" or use the YT inhouse editing software to cut out the segments that YT is having issues with - given that it is more time consuming to filter through hundreds if not thousands of video hours and still unsure if it will make the cut from YT Policy, it will be easier to just delete forever and basically restart.

OR you just keep the channel demonetized and start a third party crowd sourcing to have your viewers financially support your channel outside of YT (more risky).

I had my YT channel demonetized last fall and within 30 days (after deleting the few videos that made my channel demonetized), I was back on the payroll.

Yeah I thought as much. It's a real shame as my Mum loves watching the videos as it has her grandchildren in. I might transfer them to a new channel so she can still watch them on Youtube but it's just so much work to do, I guess for now I'll just delete them but it's pretty heart breaking.

Glad you're up and running again.

 

[Bubblegummonsters]

Whilst I've not been monetized I did have an issue with the vagueness of what youtube considered to be an offending video.
A video was taken off and I was warned about a video containing sexual content .
I was absolutely baffled and went through the video with a fine tooth comb so I could appeal it.
There was no audio related to any sexual acts or imagery- the video was three true horror tales about intruders , one had snakes in it and my partner thinks the snake tale may be responsible as it had an image of a snake on a womans face (her apartment had snake slithering through the openings)
Before I could appeal though the video was actually put back on .
It'd be nice though if youtube could put a time reference so you at least know what you're looking for when its incredibly vague.

Ha ha, that's actually quite funny that the algorithm must have thought that was something else.


It's so frustrating because they even said that my channel had been manually reviewed. So if that's the case then surely the person who reviewed it would have logged what the issues were. The data must be there some where so you'd think it would make sense to share that data with the person it concerns. I just hate the fact that I feel I've bent over backward these past few years trying to appease Youtube, only to be constantly kicked in the arse.

 

[SoyManuelMedina]

Were you able to re-monetize your Channel? I have SUCCESFULLY re-monetized two YT channels after being marked as "not original enough", both times I did it by sending a video about something completely unrelated (I made a video showing how I made those videos), so maybe my experience will help you.

 

[MediaMan]

Doesn't look like it, he's producing a video game now.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd2jNNJ0CsM


But if you look at his thumbs, is it surprising? When you have an older looking dude, kids, monsters, in a thumb what demographic are you targeting? He has over a million subs, I would have tried updating all 200 vids with a very generic thumb (simple channel logo) and a simple episode number along with a generic desc, in a last ditch effort to stay monetized. "BG Monsters Episode 1", etc, etc, "BG Monsters Episode 200". It may not be SEO exciting, but it might allow his channel to get monetized again so those million+ subs can generate revenue.

 

[MattCommand1]

But if you look at his thumbs, is it surprising? When you have an older looking dude, kids, monsters, in a thumb what demographic are you targeting? He has over a million subs, I would have tried updating all 200 vids with a very generic thumb (simple channel logo) and a simple episode number along with a generic desc, in a last ditch effort to stay monetized. "BG Monsters Episode 1", etc, etc, "BG Monsters Episode 200". It may not be SEO exciting, but it might allow his channel to get monetized again so those million+ subs can generate revenue.

I am stunned by this. I've heard about the nastiness of COPPA and dealing with kids content. But jeez, this is super harsh. 1 million subscribers and suddenly the channel is dead on monetization with no clarification.

His content seems fine to me but I don't presume to be an expert in children's content and what is allowed or not.

All I know is that I make sure that I state that none of my videos are intended for kids. In fact, I don't even care if people under 30 watch my videos. My videos are generally intended for 35+ audience.

You might be right that even though he could not change the video content, I do think that redoing the thumbnails to make it less child friendly might have made it less conspicuous. But perhaps that was too much to take for him as a creator.

I feel a great deal of sympathy for the guy.

 

[Xavier De Buck]

I am stunned by this. I've heard about the nastiness of COPPA and dealing with kids content. But jeez, this is super harsh. 1 million subscribers and suddenly the channel is dead on monetization with no clarification.

His content seems fine to me but I don't presume to be an expert in children's content and what is allowed or not.

All I know is that I make sure that I state that none of my videos are intended for kids. In fact, I don't even care if people under 30 watch my videos. My videos are generally intended for 35+ audience.

You might be right that even though he could not change the video content, I do think that redoing the thumbnails to make it less child friendly might have made it less conspicuous. But perhaps that was too much to take for him as a creator.

I feel a great deal of sympathy for the guy.

I agree with you there, Matt.

In his shoes, I'd bend over backward to change intros, descriptions, thumbnails (yes 100's of them), etc to make sure my videos would be considered kid-friendlier!!

Thank goodness my niche allowed me to say that none of my content is intended for kids. Besides all the hurdles you're trying to jump to get some traction/views, now you'd need to keep a VERY close eye on whether every word/pic on there is PG or PG-13

 

[MattCommand1]

Thank goodness my niche allowed me to say that none of my content is intended for kids. Besides all the hurdles you're trying to jump to get some traction/views, now you'd need to keep a VERY close eye on whether every word/pic on there is PG or PG-13

Supposedly, a little profanity is allowed on YT. But I have not allowed myself to allow one profanity to slip into a video .... yet. I don't even want to delve into PG-13 from a language perspective.

In one video, I even bleeped out the word "obese" in one video because I didn't want a complaint that I was fat-shaming anyone (which I wasn't). It was an observation of watching people walk by.

Dealing with YT and hearing other people's stories is like hitting a moving target. I feel I have to be most conservative on YT because of the various crackdowns and policy changes.

 

[Xavier De Buck]

Supposedly, a little profanity is allowed on YT. But I have not allowed myself to allow one profanity to slip into a video .... yet. I don't even want to delve into PG-13 from a language perspective.

In one video, I even bleeped out the word "obese" in one video because I didn't want a complaint that I was fat-shaming anyone (which I wasn't). It was an observation of watching people walk by.

Dealing with YT and hearing other people's stories is like hitting a moving target. I feel I have to be most conservative on YT because of the various crackdowns and policy changes.

Tell me about it - likewise on my side, I avoid any political affiliation, religious orientation, etc as there's always someone you'll rub the wrong way - I had a few close encounters (read: PR nightmares) when some of the listing agents on my video tours were using certain language which got interpreted by a tiny small fraction of my audience as offensive and things hit the fan within minutes of posting the videos...

ie using real estate lingo of 'master bedroom' was seen as offensive as it implied 'master-servant' and that was seen as racist. Likewise, on another occassion, we use colloquialism of 'American shutters' as 'plantation shutters' which was then seen as 'master-slave' and we were off to the races with people jumping into the comments to "block this racist social media page" (even though me myself had nothing to do with it as the agent used that description, yet...)

My oh my - do we learn quickly!

 

[naladea]

The whole situation with COPPA sucks because theres no definitive clear guidelines as to whats allowed and whats not. YT should just point to the actual examples that are in breach, with timestamps or clips or something or provide some source where one could see what content is fine and what isn't. To answer your question, setting videos to private isn't the same as editing or deleting them. YouTube may still consider them as potential policy violations.

In the meantime, consider featuring free games on your channel. This could maintain engagement and offer your viewers some cost-effective entertainment options.

Guessing its just the sheer volumes of videos that they have to go through that they haven't managed to figure out some easy way to automate giving better feedback. Good luck!