YouTube has made some radical changes to their Community Guidelines that affect every creator. See how you can stay on the right side of the new rules.
YouTube has updated its Community Guidelines to cover a wide range of sins that video creators can break, whether it’s nudity, harmfulness, hate, violent content, harassment and bullying, or spam. If creators cross the line on these issues, they will soon find themselves in trouble.
There are many different YouTube Community Guidelines, and there are places where creators can break them, such as:
- Content
- Titles
- Thumbnails
- Playlists
- Live-streams
- Comments
In the past, YouTube’s penalties varied depending on where the crime was committed. Maybe you’ve lost the live streaming privileges, or you can’t post a video for a certain amount of time. The rules are a bit confusing, so YouTube has cleared up confusion for creators and made it clear what violates a Community Guideline.
YouTube Community Guidelines
As of February 19, 2019, the new YouTube Community Guidelines have been put in place for all creators on YouTube. YouTube is not hoping to punish first-time offenders, who may not be able to be up to speed with the rules. As a result, all channels will receive a one-time warning the first time they post content that crosses the line, with no penalty other than removing the content.
The good news is that this warning applies to all channels, so even if you have an existing strike, you still get this warning before further penalties. Whether you violate the YouTube Community Guideline in thumbnails, video content, playlists, or comments, the penalty is always the same.
Strike 1
If you break YouTube Community Guidelines a second time, it will be considered your first official strike. This will cause your content to be deleted as before.
On top of that, your right to post content on YouTube will be blocked for a week. This includes videos, live streams, YouTube stories and community posts.
You can still post comments. After a week, you’ll get all the posting features back, but the strike is still on your account for a total of 90 days.
Strike 2
If you violate YouTube Community Guidelines again within 90 days, this will be your second strike, and you will be subject to the same penalty, except that you will be given a two-week ban instead of a one-week ban.
Strike 3
If you violate YouTube Community Guidelines for the third time, YouTube isn’t here to play and your channel will be terminated.
Obviously, terminating your channel is very drastic, so YouTube has now promised to be more transparent about the rules you violate, so it won’t get to that stage. They will be more specific about the offending information and will communicate with you through notifications, emails and Creator Studio. The appeal process will continue as before.
Read also: How to Contact YouTube Support? Here Are 5 Ways for You!
All the changes YouTube has made in this area are commendable. The first warning is a brilliant idea, because many video makers are afraid to make any YouTube Community Guidelines strike at any point in their YouTube journey. A consistent penalty system would make it very clear to the user. It also eliminates the harsh penalties that used to apply to live streaming for 90 days.
![Best Live Streaming Software for YouTube [Guide]](https://images.minitool.com/youtubedownload.minitool.com/images/uploads/2020/04/best-live-streaming-software-thumbnail.png)
In fact, creators are getting an extra strike out of the new rules, but you shouldn’t take advantage of that. After the first warning, you should not make any further strikes on your YouTube channel.
Bottom Line
In short, that’s all you need to know about the new YouTube guidelines. As a YouTube video creator, you always need to be up to speed with the rules in case you accidentally break them.