While shedding light on how YouTube chooses to either monetize a video or not, the YouTube channel MxR Plays made an in-depth video discussing how they lost their ability to monetize their videos on the Google-owned video-sharing platform.
Echoing the voice of many YouTubers, in an emotional video titled, “YouTube has gotten rid of our ability to monetize our videos”, the YouTuber-couple MxR and Potastic Panda lashed out against YouTube.
In an effort to highlight the unfair treatment they were subjected to, the YouTubers drew attention to their recent upload titled: kids are fricken stupid.
“The ‘kids are freaking stupid’ video we just uploaded which is literally about kids being stupid, we completely censored the absolute bejesus out of it. All curse words are gone. Anything that might be an appropriate is gone….There’s a freaking mannequin in there, a mannequin that we completely blocked out. Like we tried our absolute best. That is something the bot deems as not suitable for advertisers. So that’s kind of the level of sensitivity we’re talking about,” said MxR.
Generally speaking, YouTubers tend to make income off of their YouTube videos only if they are approved by the platform. Any video that is up for monetization is bifurcated into two categories by the platform’s bot: yellow and green.
Videos with a green dollar-sign are the ones that are approved for monetization, and the ones with a yellow dollar-sign have limited ads as the bot deems them inappropriate. YouTubers can then appeal for a manual-review wherein an actual person would review the videos and give them a green signal if everything is okay.
Here’s where the whole hassle began: despite uploading their videos and waiting for over two days to one week, they weren’t being reviewed by YouTube, essentially making it impossible for MxR to monetize the videos. It is also worth noting that 90% of the videos uploaded by MxR Plays tend to get a yellow sign, the YouTubers say.
What’s more, the YouTuber couple further stated that their friends’ channels got their videos reviewed in under eight hours, unlike theirs – implying that the delay in their case was purposeful. It was also revealed that nearly five videos of their channel were still awaiting approval.
While MxR does have a problem with losing the ability to monetize the YouTube channel, he said that he was more concerned by the fact that the videos that aren’t deemed as monetizable tend to lose their reach.
While YouTube has denied that videos that aren’t monetized are suppressed by their algorithms, YouTubers tend to disagree as they often see a harsh drop on views when a video is demonetized.
“I feel like it’s a bit cruel to take this ability away…and essentially cripple a business, a channel that we’ve worked so hard to build this year.”
Apologizing about any potential mishaps on his end, MxR requested YouTube to help monetize his videos again. As an alternative, MxR also revealed that he may also upload uncensored videos on Patreon as a means to monetizing the videos.
MxR were only just out of woods from their last controversy with Jukin Media and now they’re hit with new frustrations.
YouTube’s mass demonetization has caused frustration for many YouTube creator who often fear that their income could be taken away from them overnight – and it’s something YouTube doesn’t seem to want to address.
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