YouTube video filter policy reduces earnings of content creators

A large number of young Vietnamese love posting video on YouTube platform

According to YouTube’s survey from last year, Vietnam remains among the countries with the highest number of YouTube viewers, with viewers increasing by 85 per cent on-year. This has created a great opportunity for young Vietnamese people to make a living through this platform.

However, YouTube’s new video filter policy has brought concerns for many Vietnamese YouTubers doing business on this platform since late 2017.

YouTuber Tony Phung said YouTube’s tightened earning policy sharply reduced his turnover. “This policy has limited not only nonsensical videos but also videos with high-quality content as well as images and sound.”

Hong Nhi, runner of the Techmag Vietnam channel, also said that the channel has received far fewer views since the changes.

YouTube’s new policy moderates advertising on videos, effectively reducing advertising incomes for channel owners, leading to widespread public requests for YouTube to allow content creators to earn money. This impacts many Youtubers who are investing a lot of time and effort in their videos.

“YouTube’s new video filter does not distinguish between quality content and “rubbish,” leading to many high-quality videos being yellow-flagged (marked as inappropriate content by Youtube). Therefore, many YouTubers have been petitioning YouTube not to ruin their earnings,” said Vinh Tran, owner of the Vinh Vat Vo channel.

According to Tony Phung, YouTube needs to issue new policies to ensure the rights of genuine content creators, especially YouTubers who create quality videos for a living.

“YouTube should have a better filtering system to allow high-quality videos to rise above the chaff,” said Tony Phung.

YouTube’s new filtering policy is also the main reason of a gun assault at YouTube’s headquarter near San Francisco on April 3.

US media said that Nasim Aghdam, the 39-year-old woman who shot at YouTube’ headquarters, got angry after her income from YouTube videos dropped due to the company’s filtering policy.

YouTube has tightened its policies in late 2017, aiming to better protect users and viewers, as well as resolve its scandals in 2017.

The new policy was issued as Logan Paul, one of YouTube’s most influential content creators, made a live stream of finding a dead body in Japan’s Aokigahara Forest. Afterwards, YouTube also rejected him from its advertisement programme Google Preferred.

In early 2018, YouTube issued certain requirements for accounts to earn money on the platform, including the criteria that the channels must produce at least 4,000 hours of watching during 12 months and have at least 1,000 subscribers.

“These high-standard requirements help us prevent inappropriate videos from getting money and damaging the public,” said YouTube’s representative.