YouTube eases up on violent content restriction for content creators

Earlier this month, a new update to YouTube's policy caused a big shakeup with content creators whose main audience are kids. The streaming platform required users to correctly label their videos as intended for children. What it means is the system will cease gathering data from viewers who click and view these items. Likewise, comments end screens are some of the features that will be locked out. Now, it is tweaking the rules once more and this time allows users to upload clips of simulated violence. Despite how it sounds, there are still some guidelines to follow to avoid penalties.

While the revenue generated from content curated for children will be clearly affected by the previous ruling, the latest adjustment now gives other channels an opportunity to monetise their videos via the AdSense program. As reported by The Verge, this update is not a big change to how YouTube classifies TV shows and movies with similar acts depicted on screen.

This apparently allows every user to see these come up in search results and will be viewable without any age restriction. According to sources, advertisements still follow a different guideline, which means companies that wish to put up ads on YouTube can opt out of videos with violent content. Hence, these clips still run the risk of being demonetised.

The platform will continue to moderate up to a certain degree to protect viewers from actual violence. "We're working to identify advertisers who are interested in edgier content, like a marketer looking to promote an R-rated movie, so we can match them with creators whose content fits their ads," explained YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki. "In its first month, this program resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars of ads in yellow icon videos," she noted.

Gaming videos treads the fine line between being tagged as for children, or if the violence is excessive, being marked for adults. So far, the only channels that have found success with YouTube AdSense are those that play games such as "Fortnite," "Minecraft," and other similar titles. It might still be a long way before the platform makes some adjustments since video games are apparently that high on the company's priority list.