Our Policies
Our Policies
YouTube’s mission is to give everyone a voice and show them
the world — and openness and free expression are at the heart
of this. Our platform is a place where a broad range of
perspectives are encouraged, and we don’t shy away from
disagreement and debate.
How Community & Ad-Friendly Guidelines work
Our policies help us maintain a responsible business that
viewers, creators, and advertisers can rely on in order to
continue to thrive on YouTube.
As with any system, we sometimes make mistakes. That’s why
appeals
are an important part of our processes. Creators are notified
when their videos are removed due to policy violations or when
they may be suspended from YPP, and can appeal if they
disagree with our decision.
Our
Community Guidelines
and
Advertiser-Friendly Content Guidelines
are what enable us to strike this balance.
Community Guidelines
Advertiser-Friendly Content Guidelines
Content that violates our community guidelines is flagged by a
mix of
automated detection and human reporting —
most is automatically detected — and we go to great lengths to
make sure violative content isn’t widely viewed, or even
viewed at all, before it’s taken down.
Exceptions can be made when content has a clear educational,
documentary, scientific, or artistic
(EDSA)
context.
Brands rely on us to protect their business interests when
they’re advertising on YouTube.
To help support this, we have a set of Ad-Friendly guidelines
creators in the
YouTube Partner Program (YPP)
need to follow in order to have Ads served on their channel
content and earn a share of the revenue.
How we support creators
Since 2007, we’ve been paying eligible creators every month
through our revenue-sharing model, the
YouTube Partner Program.
For a creator to be eligible for YPP, they must meet a
higher bar for what they share on YouTube. Creators have to
follow
YouTube monetization policies
and we review each applicant’s channel before admitting them
to YPP. We also demonetize videos that violate our
Advertiser Friendly Guidelines, and suspend creators from
YPP for repeat offenses. With this model, creators have a
long-term incentive to reinforce YouTube’s safety and follow
our policies.
We also provide Creators with an array of tools to manage their
content & communities:
Manage Experiences
Channel Guidelines help creators set what kind of
conversations they want to have on their channel.
Creators can hold potentially inappropriate comments for
review, hide certain individuals, block words, assign
moderation privileges, and more.
Channel Management
We provide creators with an array of products that help
them decide how to manage their channels.
Privacy & Safety Resources
The privacy and safety of creators on YouTube is important
to us, and we provide a range of tools & resources to
support them.
How YouTube Partners with Industry Experts to Combat Abuse
Content that’s meant to praise, promote, or aid violent
extremist or criminal organizations is not allowed on
YouTube. We rely on many factors — like certain government
and international organization designations — to determine
what constitutes criminal or terrorist organizations.
We’re also a founding member of the Global Internet Forum to
Counter Terrorism
(GIFCT), where we work with other tech companies to keep terrorist
content off the web — and provide training and other
resources to smaller companies facing similar challenges.