YouTube has warned its creators about its latest decision to close accounts, which implies that YouTubers will see a decrease in their subscriber count starting as of now.
YouTube says that it performs this type of check regularly and that it serves no other purpose than removing inactive accounts on the platform.
Accounts can be closed by the user itself or by Google if it detects that the user has “violated YouTube’s policies”.
The process supposedly also has the objective of freeing the site of spam and bots.
It’s worth mentioning that when a YouTube account is closed, the platform doesn’t instantly remove it from the channels it’s subscribed to, hence the need for these routine checks, according to the company.
YouTube says that creators should note the changes within the next 48 hours
The owners of a YouTube channel can check the impact on the subscriber count by accessing YouTube Studio and following the indications below:
YouTube Analytics > “See more” under the graph > Subscription source > Closed accounts.
This process will certainly have an impact on the subscriber count of most channels, but it shouldn’t have an impact on watch time since YouTube is only removing closed accounts, the company suggests.
However, there are always concerns around these procedures, as YouTube can often go overboard.
“Sometimes, due to technical or process reasons, we may need to remove more than the usual amount of closed accounts on one day” – says a YouTube staffer in the communique posted by Google Support.
Big channels on YouTube might not notice what is going on, but this is usually a huge deal for smaller channels around their first thousand subscribers, especially when we take into account that the YouTube Partner Program requires YouTubers to have at least 1K subscribers if they wish to monetize their content.
The repercussions of this process are yet to be felt in the platform, and if something goes wrong – like the purge of June of 2016 – the YouTube community will let people know very soon.
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