YouTube wants to give content creators who violate its guidelines a second chance. Creators will now get the option to take an “educational training course” when they receive a community guidelines warning, and in exchange, YouTube will lift that warning from their account.
YouTube previously issued a lifetime warning to channels that violated its content guidelines and removed the video in question. The lifetime warning stayed on a YouTuber’s account forever and preceded the strikes that a creator would receive for breaking its rules again.
Under YouTube’s new policies, the platform will still take down the video in violation of its rules, but it will give creators a chance to get rid of YouTube’s warning by having them take a class that goes over the policy they broke.
YouTube will now also apply individual warnings based on the specific policies they break instead of a general lifetime warning that covers all of its policies. YouTube says this will give creators “more opportunities to learn why their content may have crossed the line,” while also giving them the “ability to take multiple learning courses at the same time.”
However, YouTube says it will reinstate its warning if the creator breaks the same rule within 90 days of taking its training course. Once the 90-day period is up, creators in violation of the same policy will get another chance to waive YouTube’s warning by taking another educational class. YouTube says channels that received a lifetime warning in the past can also take the course to waive it.
The addition of training courses still isn’t an excuse to abuse YouTube’s rules, the platform warns. YouTube will still abide by its three-strike policy and will terminate accounts when they repeatedly violate its policies “or post a single case of severe content.” The company also says it may block repeat offenders from taking its educational classes in the future as well.
“Looking ahead, we’ll keep working to make our policies easier for creators to understand,” YouTube writes. “We ultimately want creators to have the clarity they need to stay strike free on our platform — while maintaining a healthy experience for YouTube’s entire community.”
