• YouTube has updated its policy regarding Community Guideline strikes.
• Now creators can take a course to reverse a strike they have received while also learning how to avoid receiving that strike again.
• YouTube is clear however that its guidelines aren’t changing only how it enforces these guidelines.

For many years YouTube has operated on a “three strikes and you’re out” mentality with its Community Guidelines. Put simply, if a creator breaks YouTube’s Community Guidelines more than three times, their channel and content could be removed from the platform.

While this serves as a warning for those who wish to spread misinformation, hatred, and other nastiness, sometimes a creator simply makes a mistake. This is why YouTube introduced a one-time warning in 2019 when violating the Community Guidelines for the first time.

The trouble here is that YouTube is something of a black box when it comes to determining what is and isn’t acceptable content. That’s not to say there aren’t clear lines being drawn but when you get to the edge cases things become less clear.

Now creators can get a better understanding of how their content may violate guidelines in training courses. By taking these courses, creators can have the warning on their channel removed.

“We’ve designed each training course to provide creators with more clarity about the type of content that violates our policies. For example, take a creator who posts a video meant to educate about sexual health, but we determine it violates our Community Guidelines because it lacks sufficient context under our nudity and sexual content policy. Previously, we’d remove the video and apply a lifetime warning to the channel. Going forward, while we’ll still remove the violative content from YouTube, creators who choose to take our course will review a series of questions about our sexual content policies and learn how to better stay within our policy lines,” YouTube writes in a blog post.

Creators who stay clear of the same policy violation for a 90-day period will have the warning lifted from their channel but should they re-offend, a strike will be applied to their channel. If the creator violates the policy after the 90-day period, they will have to take the training course again.

Will this work? We’re not so sure and it depends entirely on how effective these training courses are. We have to say though, it’s very odd that YouTube is only letting those who break the rules access the tools that help them avoid breaking the rules. Surely these training courses should be available to all creators so that they don’t run the risk of having their content removed?

What is encouraging is that rather than receiving a blanket warning when a community guideline is violated, creators will now receive warnings that refer to the specific policy that has been violated.

YouTube was clear to say its Community Guidelines aren’t changing but perhaps they ought to.

There has long been a call for YouTube to separate content based on age restrictions and we have a feeling that this could solve a lot of the headaches these Community Guidelines create. Creators often find themselves hit with Community Guideline violations that weren’t previously enforced but suddenly are.

Earlier this year YouTube began enforcing a new monetisation policy that retroactively affected videos where profanity is used. This once again highlighted the need for YouTube to be more granular in its enforcement of its policies.

These new courses are a good idea but the execution, much like many other facets of YouTube, needed more time in the oven.