BY CHEYENNE HENRY

In these past few weeks some major stuff has gone down in the YouTube community. It started off with just a few YouTubers videos being demonetized, which means that creators do not earn any money, considering that ads are not allowed for their videos. This all actually started last year.

The first sign of a problem happened 56 videos posted by StormCloudsgathering were suddenly demonetized. Despite his 500,000 subscribers, word of his demonetized videos did not spread very well. Now, more and more YouTubers are having their videos demonetized. This sudden shift in policy left content creators scrambling.  YouTubers seemed confused by the situation and caused a panic among their viewers and within the community itself.

YouTube has said that this isn’t new. They just decided to take an alternate route to advertisements. Users responded by updating their notifications, so now YouTubers get notifications when their video is demonetized.

This also forced the community to take a closer look at YouTube’s Advertiser friendly content guidelines. It turns out that their guidelines seem to be at odds with the type of content that generates the most viewership on the platform.  It also seems to put some restraint on free speech. Many creators believe YouTube is putting too much of a burden on them with their guidelines.

Often times their guidelines are too vague to even follow. They leave too many questions unanswered. Like what constitutes partial nudity? Will people videos be demonetized because a man is shirtless? What about controversial subjects? Anything can be seen as controversial. So is YouTube saying their creators videos will be demonetized if they start comparing toothbrushes? The community has called for YouTube to come out and explain their rules more and possibly change them altogether.