YouTube is planning to make some major changes to its policies for 2018, which will make it harder for some people to generate income from their videos.
The biggest online video streaming website in the world is currently under fire from advertisers, who, in the wake of vlogger Logan Paul's shocking suicide forest video, have growing concerns regarding the type of endorsers their products are being tied with through advertisements.
Until recently, there has been no real control as to which videos the companies can place their advertisements on based on the videos' actual content, resulting in the placement of otherwise wholesome product endorsements and government ads to videos with inappropriate content such as extremist videos or those that display highly sensitive issues such as suicide.
Because of this, YouTube has decided to be more stringent in screening those channels that can be monetized. Previously, YouTubers who want to make money through their videos are only required to have 10,000 views in order to make it to the company's whitelist. Now, a channel that wishes to generate income must have had at least 4,000 hours of watch time within the last 12 months and should have at least 1,000 subscribers.
Apart from completing the requirements for monetization, the videos posted by these channels will now also be manually checked by YouTube staff to ensure that the videos which advertisers will place their ads do not have malicious and inappropriate content. They will also be implementing a "three-tier suitability system" so that advertisers have more choices on the type of videos they want their ads to be played on.
One of YouTube's most successful users, Felix Kjellberg, also known as PewDiePie, says the new monetization rule should not be a problem for resolute YouTubers.
"It shouldn't be an issue to not to monetize before you hit these numbers." He said. "As much as I typically hate [YouTube's] business practice, this one makes sense to me."
