YouTube Will Provide More Context on Policy Violations with Two Coming Updates

Amid growing frustration among YouTube creators in regards to the platform’s most recent policy update, YouTube has provided updates on two key developments on this front, with the next stage for its display of timestamps for Community Guidelines violations, and a new ‘Guided Resolution Flow’ to address concerns.

YouTube’s been developing its timestamps option over the past few months, which provides more specific guidance as to when a violation has occurred in a video clip.

As you can see in this example, the timestamps display shows when exactly the violation occurred in the video, and which specific policy is in question. There are also links to more information about the policy, which provides a far more transparent process for upload issues.

Users can then opt to appeal any reports, or they can remove the relevant segment in order to keep the video up, and/or regain their monetization status.

The option is still only available to selected creators, but YouTube says that it’s looking to expand the alerts soon.

In addition to this, YouTube’s also developing a new guided resolution flow for violations and reports, which aims to provide creators with even more information on the next steps they should take in response to concerns.

The process is similar to the timestamp alerts, but with extra steps, including additional information and resources that will help creators understand what happened, and what they can do about it.

As per YouTube:

“We’ll show where the policy violation occurs, what precise policy was violated, and what that means for the individual piece of content. And at the end of the guided resolution flow, we’ll show creators what options they have going forward and make it easy to take those next steps.”

It’s a good update, which comes at an opportune time, as creators once again feel the brunt of YouTube’s most recent policy update, which has seen the retrospective demonetization of many clips.

Back in November, YouTube unveiled an update to its Advertiser Friendly Guidelines, which includes new rules around the presentation of inappropriate language and violence in uploaded clips. As a result, many gaming creators, in particular, are now falling foul of the rules, because the games that they’re streaming sometimes feature violence, which now goes against YouTube’s guidelines.

Creators have also expressed frustration at how the rules around profanity are being applied, with ads being retrospectively limited in all videos that feature bad language within the first 15 seconds.

Within this, it can only be helpful that YouTube’s looking to provide more transparency, and information on how to address violations.

I mean, it won’t solve the retrospective demonetization concern, but it could help users better understand and manage similar situations moving forward.

The updates are in testing, and will be rolling out to more creators soon.