The Impact of YouTube's Algorithm on Gaming Creators

As a familiar platform with what things were like before, YouTube has faced criticism from gaming creators and enthusiasts alike regarding its recent changes to its algorithm. The changes have had a significant impact on how content is displayed and monetized, particularly when it comes to game-related content.

Game Violence and Ad Revenue

The new guidelines state that game violence directed at a real named person or acts that are manufactured to create shocking experiences, such as brutal mass killing implied moments of death, may not receive ad revenue. This includes games like Battlefield, which features intense gameplay with realistic sound effects and graphics. YouTube creators who focus on these types of games often use highlight reels in their videos to grab viewers' attention, but the algorithm's new rules have caused some confusion.

The distinction between standard gameplay and graphic violence is also unclear. The guidelines acknowledge that gory injuries are present in many modern games, but they do not specify which type of content should be exempt from ad revenue restrictions. This has led to frustration among creators who feel that their content is being unfairly targeted by the algorithm.

Algorithms and Gaming Content

YouTube's algorithm has always been mysterious, but recent changes have made it even more opaque. The platform has introduced a separate page for gaming content, which was added recently. However, this new section is not clearly defined, making it difficult to understand what types of violence are specifically excluded from ad revenue.

The lack of communication from YouTube has contributed to the confusion and frustration among creators. The platform's attempts to address these issues have been met with criticism, with many feeling that they do not fully understand the algorithm's workings. This is particularly true for gaming creators who often rely on algorithms to determine their video's visibility and revenue.

The Impact of Short-Form Content

YouTube has also introduced a new type of content called "shorts," which are 8-15 second clips designed to be more engaging than traditional videos. However, the algorithm's changes have caused some concern among creators who worry that their shorts will be demonetized due to accidental exposure to graphic content.

This issue highlights the difficulties in navigating YouTube's ever-changing landscape. Creators must constantly adapt to new guidelines and algorithms, which can be confusing and stressful. The uncertainty surrounding short-form content also raises questions about the platform's priorities and commitment to providing a safe experience for its users.

Live Streaming and Algorithmic Uncertainty

Live streaming on YouTube presents an additional challenge for creators, who often struggle to anticipate what content will pop up during their streams. A well-placed graphic or message can quickly become jarring and off-putting, particularly if it's not related to the topic at hand. This unpredictability makes it difficult for creators to plan their content or adjust to sudden changes in the algorithm.

The Responsibility of Creators

Despite the challenges posed by YouTube's algorithm, many feel that creators have a responsibility to play it safe and avoid potentially objectionable content. However, this can be difficult when creating engaging and entertaining videos, particularly when it comes to games with mature themes. The constant struggle between creativity and caution is a common experience for gaming creators.

YouTube's Responsibility and Communication

Ultimately, the blame for the confusion and frustration among creators lies with YouTube itself. The platform's lack of clear communication and transparency has contributed to the difficulties faced by many gamers. A more open approach to explaining its guidelines and algorithm would help to alleviate concerns and ensure that creators are better equipped to navigate the ever-changing landscape.

The Impact on Communities

The recent changes have had a disproportionate impact on gaming communities, who rely on YouTube as a primary platform for discovering new games and connecting with fellow enthusiasts. The uncertainty surrounding ad revenue and content moderation has led to frustration among fans, who worry about the long-term viability of their favorite platforms.

Conclusion

YouTube's algorithmic changes have significant implications for gaming creators and enthusiasts alike. While the platform offers many benefits, including a vast audience and monetization opportunities, its recent decisions have caused confusion and frustration. By understanding the complexities of YouTube's guidelines and algorithms, creators can better navigate this ever-changing landscape and ensure that their content reaches its intended audience.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enman I'm so I thought you said we weren't doing that yeah we're gonna bleep it but you said that's what wancho did no but they no land show did it for real is this the intro should you be allowed to swear on YouTube at all at all yes maybe we should just maybe it should just be turned into a platform for for little babies and adults with baby brains well I think generally Society tends towards more swearing you see it in Europe already they'll put s-h-i-t or ass or even b-i-t-c-h right on an ad at a bus stop yeah like in Iceland and stuff Europe is Europe is edgy they're ahead of us Europe Europe is doing some cool stuff honestly we could have been part of that mostly with the swearing yeah so I think it just we're tending towards that so it seems it would be very like puritanical to take a step back and make a platform where there's just no swearing allowed see I don't know if it's that Society tends to more Morse tends towards more swear words or whether the existing swear words just kind of get sanitized and then new Crazy Ones come up but we should say why we're here and what we're talking about tell me about it YouTube's recent uh changes to their Advertiser friendly guidelines that that they made well it's not so recent anymore it was in November but the thing is that no one really knew about it until after November like kind of going into December and then January there was a big backlash as people kind of more people discovered this thanks to gaming creators complaining because their videos were demonetized or thanks to us you may be discovering this right now well yeah I mean like honestly part of the reason that we wanted to report on it because it seemed like the only people who were really talking about it were these gaming creators uh you know the big guy that experienced the most maybe effect from this was uh Daniel Condren of RT game what happened to Daniel he uh had one of his videos demonetized and he reached out to YouTube and he's like what's going on and they said yeah it's supposed to be demonetized and then they also demonetized like over a dozen more of his videos from the back catalog yeah okay yeah uh because of these YouTube changes so we should go over this because you're not super familiar with with this but you have lots of thoughts about swearing which is why I brought you I'm familiar with various elements of this yes you're what we call a kusman uh yes or or sweary boy sweary boy that's what they called you in school yeah um so they have this page this is actually very helpful with all of the changes that they make uh by by time but what is this page this should just be like a notification exactly YouTube exactly how do I even know about this page this is this is silent they roll this out and there is this big change in it that uh a their approach to profanity is changing and that they're treating them all the same so like the f word is the same as ass can I am I he double hockey sticks just kidding hell and damn aren't swear words anymore and they say that here yeah do they it's right there not we're now treating hell and damn as not being profound and that's a change yeah so that's see that's what I'm saying what do you mean we're tending towards more swear exactly well but I'm saying that it's what I'm saying actually oh okay uh now is that the only place that they have an exhaustive list of the swears no so on the full page for The Advertiser friendly content guidelines they have more examples like profanity like these ones um used outside the start of the video now this is another thing that I wanted to bring attention to this says after 15 seconds right so you read this and you're like oh I just wait 15 seconds and then I can say whatever swear words I want no that's not true over here it says profanities used after the first eight seconds may receive ad Revenue pray you don't accidentally say one of the new profanities between 8 and 15 seconds okay there's so many things to unpack here I know okay first of all going back to the exhaustive list of swear words what is or is not a swear word um for example the r word many people today will be like I don't say that word does that mean it's a swear word it's definitely an offensive word to many people to many other people they still happily say it so like I think am I gonna get demonetized you have to just find out yeah well I think that that the r word specifically would probably refer to their policy like like that would fall under their policy of like you know harassment or being okay or whatever okay what about a like a regional swear like so for example g-a-s-h not really a swear in North America GS if I'm like that's cash that's not that's not a swear here but in the UK that's a swear word like that's pretty bad it's like an actual swear I don't live there but I'm told it's way worse and I've seen comments like I'm not supposed to say it I just said I'm not supposed to say it on the invar videos anymore I've seen lots of comments of being like whoa I can't believe you said that uh so is that a swear word or not do they have Regional lists how does it work okay wait a second yeah I mean that's a great question I had never heard uh the the the the word you just spelled out I guess that we're trying not to say did I say about you yeah okay yeah until I met you and then I was like oh I was saying this a lot it's great phonetically amazing it sounds great yeah for sure um to refer to something I I the question I had earlier about the first eight eight to 15 seconds it's right here you profanity used in the first eight to 15 seconds you can earn limited or no ad Revenue wait why does this say eight to Fifteen because because these guidelines the the update from November says don't use any profanity in the first eight seconds or you could be demonetized okay okay and then this one says don't use any profanity after the first 15 seconds and so we're in the first 15 seconds or you could be demonstrating so rather than just pick a number they just they have another space in the document where they say eight to Fifteen because for 8 to 15 is not even the same as 0 to 15 yeah which includes 8 to 15. 8 to 15 it's like okay you can swear from zero to eight but you can Square from eight to Fifteen and then you can swear again at 15 Beyond yeah yeah so this is the whole thing that people are really like complaining about because prior to November the rule was actually Pro so prior to April the rule was basically like you know there's no like beginning of the video thing it's just kind of like oh the whole video is the same watch your swear words or whatever in April 2021 they were like you can swear in the first 30 seconds yeah so here it is an update in April 2021 and they say second we're also expanding monetization to allow for adult themes and the usage of moderate profanity in the first 30 seconds so in April they said swear in the first 30 seconds totally fine November 2022 they roll out this relatively silent update they don't make a blog post about it they don't like tell people it just kind of appears on the site and then people's videos start getting demonetized because now you can't swear in the first Whole 30 seconds you can only swear from eight to okay so 30 seconds I I had heard the thing with Google in general and YouTube specifically is with their algorithms they never want to tell you exactly how it works because they don't want people to game the system right right you don't want to be able to know exactly how pagerank works so that you can get your site to the top of Google even though it's not a high value site so they always obscure it purposefully right and because of that there's always this like lore that gets passed around between YouTube creators who have done a lot enough experimentation and they share this lore with one another and so I had heard that if you had profanity or such or violence or whatever in the first minute that was a bad thing right and so yeah yeah it sounds the legend of the yeah of the algorithm it sounds like in April they explicitly were like you can actually have that in the first 30 seconds now or maybe after 30 seconds like they've reduced it from a minute to 30. and then they're just like kind of calling it back but the whole thing is weird because what is the difference between profanity being in the beginning of the video verse at all it comes down to I think like the whole thing with this is that advertisers like a whole reason demonetization exists because there's advertisers don't want they do not want their brand associated with certain things right you don't want to see a Disney movie and the video starts and it's Isis getting decapitated like decapitating people yeah because then Disney's like whoa these things go together apparently our monkey brains are gonna think these things go together I think Isis likes this type of toothpaste I won't buy it which I think is just kind of dumb right like they don't want their ad to be shown but besides some of the advertisers are dumb of us Apes I think it's dumb of advertising I don't know that that like follows logically I think it's kind of stupid like for me for each individual let's say I'm the kind of person who loves swearing which I am if I watch that content I'm not offended by that content right it doesn't register as offensive to my brain right I'm just like this is normal this is fine yeah so therefore if you put a Disney movie or whatever Advertiser or sensitive stuff beside that stuff I don't see that as being a problem right it's only the people who work there that see it as a problem it's only people who it's people who do have a problem with the stuff which isn't me yeah which isn't people in my living room yeah who who have a problem so why does it even work this way why doesn't it just work like hey we're going to show your ad to people who are interested in your thing and we're going to show it before videos that they like that's all it needs to be right but yeah I mean it it brings up the interesting question of like should advertisers have this kind of kind of worry of their brand being associated with certain things or certain like Behavior or Vibes you know and I feel like that's always going to be the case you know like Brands like part of part of having a brand is building like a certain identity around that brand like people know us for providing this service and you know being family friendly I guess like you wouldn't expect Disney to to put out like suddenly their entire content they're not gonna put a poster on like the gates of Auschwitz they're not gonna put Like a Star Wars poster right but like that is a physical thing in the world that is not personalized that's out in the world right it's this is all we have to remember that this advertising scheme is coming from TV old media which I think is the is the tension here because YouTube wants YouTube Google wants YouTube to be TV right they want they want to have that like sort of respectable nature to it I think that YouTube at you know all of these changes that they've made over the years I have been towards becoming more of like an established mainstream respectable platform and and a bit away from being kind of like the wild west social platform that is I don't know well I would argue this kind of goes the other way not not Twitter so much as like 4chan maybe that's the extreme it's like why is there a time component to this at all right like to what well why is it don't swear in the first eight seconds right but after that you can swear so it's it's the same video so why does it matter well it matters because that first part of the video that's the part that's gonna come directly after the ad so what they're doing is they're saying okay maybe originally in the before times you couldn't put this this ad next to a video that contains swearing at all and then they go well what if the swearing is far away and then they get closer and closer and closer what if it's a minute away what if it's eight seconds away and they're just like and eventually it's what if it doesn't matter at all and they're swearing like so this is just eight seconds of distance between Europe this is what's so confusing and cussing this is what's so confusing about this these last few changes I mean it's like from April 2021 to November there were a few changes in between there but that's what makes this whole thing so confusing is because they changed it from being you if you swear any time in the video they be treated basically the same it doesn't matter whether you say the f word at five seconds or at 32 seconds or at 32 minutes um it's all the same and then they changed it in April to say just kidding you can swear in the first 30 seconds and and we'll treat that differently uh and now they're now they're shortening so you're saying they're saying you're saying there's flip they're flip-flopping is that what you're saying well I guess it was maybe it's not honestly the whole thing is so confusing because I guess there was there was there have also been changes to the way that they treat certain profanities so like there was like extreme profanity and moderate profanity so like in the first 30 seconds you can only do moderate profanity and now you can use any profanity you want so if five or eight seconds if I wait eight to Fifteen seconds let's say call it 20 just to be safe I can go with see you next Tuesday f word see you next whatever I want and I'm good yeah is that how it works now uh after eight seconds you can say whatever you want although as we saw in the advertiser friendly content guidelines here there's a difference between like you can earn full ab Revenue this content can earn and revenue uh if you use profanity after 15 seconds if you use profanity in between the first 8 to 15 seconds you might get limited say profanity in the before that in the first seven seconds you're not gonna you're gonna be fully demonetized really so I you know I'll give them kudos for the fact that this this table right here is clearer than it's ever been yeah because they actually give you examples of the of these swear words here they want to monetize every video they do want to do that and we want to monetize this video too which is why it's sponsored by secret Lab secret lab chairs are engineered to keep you incredibly comfortable for long hours at work and play their new Titan Evo 2022 chair features four-way lumbar support Ultra comfy lines of different seat materials and more all their chairs come with up to a five year extended warranty and a 49-day return policy so head to the link in the description and check out secret lab today yes right they want to monetize as much as they can they don't really they probably don't really care about the advertisers Chick-fil-A Christian values right they just want to get yeah money doesn't care and probably the advertisers don't care either it's just like the audience that they're imagining is going to be offended by these things and you know to be fair this is probably based off research again that's so stupid because the internet is about personalization like in Old media a TV you know I'm in an airport the TV is playing anyone could be seeing that ad anyone could be watching that but now we're talking about my phone that I'm holding so if I think the content is Savory it's Savory it doesn't matter what the guy next to me on the bus thinks he's not watching my phone this is just for me so are you are you suggesting that because we live in this era of personalization uh these Services should have the ability to kind of use this data that has been collected about us which they already have which they already have to serve us different levels of well serve as the level of like appropriateness that we are okay yeah I'm I've already told your data graph that I'm into this stuff so show me whatever ad because it doesn't matter you see what I'm saying so under that system would creators be able to just kind of do whatever they want and then trust that Google is going to serve them or give them ad revenue from the advertisers that want to advertise on like crazy you know swear swear-filled content I guess it's like um do we end up arriving I guess what I'm saying is that there shouldn't be the advertisers just shouldn't have a choice like you just get put wherever that would be what I'm but I understand why they wouldn't want that which is why we arrived arrived at the situation we have right I'm just saying it's kind of arbitrary and a lot illogical I agree like if you've determined that I'm in the market for your product I'm in the market for what's the most wholesome product I don't know like baby butt wipes baby butt wipes you know I'm in the market for flavored Cheerios I'm in the market for the most wholesome product you have determined I'm your target market but I also like to watch videos that are very unsavory and have lots of swearing and Gore and violence and just the worst stuff Satanism ah I mean obviously this is like an extreme example there's not going to be many people like that there could be like millions billions of people like that I guess if you're in the market for baby wipes yeah but maybe you're looking for like the edgy baby wipes but I'm what I'm saying is like you've determined I'm one of your customers why do you think I'm like a why make a judgment call about my morality and my tastes and preferences just show me the damn ad and then I'll go on and watch the content that I like well I guess I guess I agree with you that you know in this in this world where we've already given up all our data and they have all this information about us already you know we might as well use that data now to make uh using YouTube and creating content for social platforms like easier for everybody uh by not trying to apply the single standard uh to to everyone I mean like it's based on TV right like as you say everyone's gonna see it so they were sorry now I think I I mean I I agree with you uh about about the theoretical proposition there I'm just I don't know if it's realistic because I think what YouTube is trying to be is TV and if they uh allow the situation where you know whatever goes everyone can just like make crazy violent content we didn't even talk about that or like drug references there's new rules about that that have affected gaming creators if they let it be like a wild west uh I don't think they're gonna get the type of uh I don't know what you call it Prestige uh respect yeah that they would expect well I could see or that they want I think just I think it's the brush the brushes we've chosen that are annoying me like it's swearing and it's violence but it really should be things like I don't want my brand to come before a conspiracy theory video I don't or for example I'm not choosing sides here but let's just say I don't want to be in front of an anti-vaxx misinformation video I don't want to be in front of a flat Earth video I don't want to be in front of you know some kind of like key issue um I I have no problem with advertisers you know specifying which channels they don't want to be in front of or something like that because they don't want to give money to those people right right those creators or something like that but just to be like well swearing is just bad this is interesting so like you're you're totally on the side of like we should let him we should let him fly like YouTube should be a platform where there's no like everyone just kind of makes the content they want with no uh thought towards like you know uh standards of what is appropriate well not necessarily it's up to them like for example this this organization say the WAN show yeah there's no swearing it's not because we're afraid of getting demonetized it's because we want to have the show playing in as many living rooms and cars and headsets as possible right and if you're driving home with your kid in the car and there's a bunch of swearing you can't listen to that with your when you're driving a kid from school so that limits your own audience so we've made the decision as a business to be like let's min max this and just bleep our squares or say poop instead of the other one and it's not that hard and we make more money right especially because for our type of content it's not crucial that we right you know let like let things fly you know and I think that the difference between uh Linus mini group and other groups of YouTubers or individual YouTubers is that they they might have a brand that relies a lot more on hey guys I'm just sitting down I'm I'm I'm this is my completely brutal honest take you might be like a comedian a roast comedian a very edgy comedian who relies on swearing or you might be like a faith-based channel that like really relies on not there's different dimensions right there's different forces pushing you for us it's there is a commercial Force pushing us to not swear but then there might be a moral Force to push you not but like you said it might be a functional Force to push you to swear if it's up to you to figure that out but like you said I feel like even if swearing would benefit our content in some in some way like maybe it would make us seem a little bit more relatable or make us seem a little bit more you know honest I guess uh at the end of the day do you really like it doesn't really like fundamentally change the content if you use the real f word or if you say like frickin or something like does it how fundamentally like it changes the vibe yeah well I think YouTube about authenticity and if you're yeah you're coming off as being inauthentic because you know you're just like oh shoot like if that's you if you're Ned Flanders but if they know that you're doing that as a business decision then they're kind of like I get it they can understand it but it's still inauthentic like there's there's a part of me there's a part of me that feels that coming onto a platform like YouTube and just completely letting loose and saying like I don't even care about the advertise and I don't even care what's good as a business decision I'm gonna make the content that I want to make it's like that's great you should you could you should do that if you want to do that but you also need to understand that that's going to have ramifications for the success of your of your brand right there's another element of this we haven't talked about where you see two different parts of YouTube fighting each other and so this is the violence part so is it the case that if you are a game streamer and you stream first person shooters and you start your video with a bunch of headshots can you get demonetized for that yes so that's what I brought up earlier is that they did also in this November of 22 update I'm not as familiar with what things were like before but this one says that game violence directed at a real named person or acts that are manufactured to create shocking experiences such as brutal Mass killing implied moment of death such as bombing a building with people inside may not receive ad revenue does that include just like Battlefield like a jet comes over and just this is what this is why this is a big reason why gaming YouTubers were so affected by this because you know especially in the first uh in the first seconds of a video you're trying to grab people's attention so often there will be gameplay there will be violence Sizzle reel yeah like a highlight reel right of the best stuff and hey we're playing graphic war video games yeah because that's the biggest video games in the world right and we're gonna show the best moments best means mass murder yeah that's our society exactly and so YouTube is rewarding me and incentivizing me to put these best moments at the top but they're also admonishing me for doing that because advertisers don't like that so what am I supposed to do YouTube high retention and no monetization yeah so but like that's what's so funny is that like standard gameplay where gory injuries are present they say standard gameplay like they know that this is standard for game stuff they say after the first eight seconds uh it's it's okay you you may receive ad Revenue which is so funny because and this is what's also interesting they have a separate page about gaming stuff specifically and they added that recently the gaming and monetization article yeah here it is and they but in this update they Loop it all under violence so this was part of the problem is that I'm like okay what what what types of violence that you're describing here are specifically game stuff and which parts are like like they say police seizures as part of law enforcement it's all very confusing and I think that that for me is the biggest takeaway from all this like it's really unfortunate that in this recent round uh gaming Creator specifically were the ones affected in other situations you know during the adpocalypse it was more kind of like a broad stroke so so that sucks and I think that the the thing that most people are criticizing YouTube for here is the lack of communication like change the guidelines you know but like you said the algorithm has been this kind of like mysterious thing and that's kind of part of the whole deal but I think that needs to change now especially if they're going to be making such drastic changes like this I feel like YouTube has a responsibility to communicate this yeah you should be able to at least get an email instead of having just know that page exists yeah um what about shorts also though eight to 15 seconds it could be like half a year short so you can open with some colloquial language you're just going to get demonetized on your short like that's a long time in a short I wonder if and I I think that these do apply consistently to shorts like to all content so uh and and live streams like that's the other thing when you're doing a live stream you don't know what is going to pop up and if you're playing a game you don't know if if something's gonna pop up and then it's like horribly inappropriate don't hit the player hit the game exactly exactly so it's a mess and um at the same time I think YouTube has a responsibility to communicate but at the same time I think as creators we also have a responsibility to kind of like you know try and play it safe a little bit until we get to this Utopia that you're describing where well it still has problems like well let's say I'm not a Utopia I log into my account when I'm showing my kid a video for kids yeah and then there's like a Viagra commercial in front of it I'm like oops sorry Bobby didn't mean for you to see that well exactly but you know I think the Counterpoint to that that I've seen is get your kid an account what or there's YouTube kids yeah there's kids versions of these apps I actually don't believe in showing YouTube to kids it's pretty trash content well that's a different talk link though there's some really good compilations of like just all the dinosaurs dinos yeah they loved it kind of Jurassic Park Okay the Jurassic world I got her a book I got my kid books yeah right it's just YouTube the kids can't reopen the book it's a phone you're not wearing headphones this whole time oh whoops you told me to do it oh I know it looks like I'm like this guy wait does it we have to do the outro thanks for watching talk linked uh in case you were wondering what show this is maybe it'll come back am I involved in the outro you're in the video see you later oh my Godman I'm so I thought you said we weren't doing that yeah we're gonna bleep it but you said that's what wancho did no but they no land show did it for real is this the intro should you be allowed to swear on YouTube at all at all yes maybe we should just maybe it should just be turned into a platform for for little babies and adults with baby brains well I think generally Society tends towards more swearing you see it in Europe already they'll put s-h-i-t or ass or even b-i-t-c-h right on an ad at a bus stop yeah like in Iceland and stuff Europe is Europe is edgy they're ahead of us Europe Europe is doing some cool stuff honestly we could have been part of that mostly with the swearing yeah so I think it just we're tending towards that so it seems it would be very like puritanical to take a step back and make a platform where there's just no swearing allowed see I don't know if it's that Society tends to more Morse tends towards more swear words or whether the existing swear words just kind of get sanitized and then new Crazy Ones come up but we should say why we're here and what we're talking about tell me about it YouTube's recent uh changes to their Advertiser friendly guidelines that that they made well it's not so recent anymore it was in November but the thing is that no one really knew about it until after November like kind of going into December and then January there was a big backlash as people kind of more people discovered this thanks to gaming creators complaining because their videos were demonetized or thanks to us you may be discovering this right now well yeah I mean like honestly part of the reason that we wanted to report on it because it seemed like the only people who were really talking about it were these gaming creators uh you know the big guy that experienced the most maybe effect from this was uh Daniel Condren of RT game what happened to Daniel he uh had one of his videos demonetized and he reached out to YouTube and he's like what's going on and they said yeah it's supposed to be demonetized and then they also demonetized like over a dozen more of his videos from the back catalog yeah okay yeah uh because of these YouTube changes so we should go over this because you're not super familiar with with this but you have lots of thoughts about swearing which is why I brought you I'm familiar with various elements of this yes you're what we call a kusman uh yes or or sweary boy sweary boy that's what they called you in school yeah um so they have this page this is actually very helpful with all of the changes that they make uh by by time but what is this page this should just be like a notification exactly YouTube exactly how do I even know about this page this is this is silent they roll this out and there is this big change in it that uh a their approach to profanity is changing and that they're treating them all the same so like the f word is the same as ass can I am I he double hockey sticks just kidding hell and damn aren't swear words anymore and they say that here yeah do they it's right there not we're now treating hell and damn as not being profound and that's a change yeah so that's see that's what I'm saying what do you mean we're tending towards more swear exactly well but I'm saying that it's what I'm saying actually oh okay uh now is that the only place that they have an exhaustive list of the swears no so on the full page for The Advertiser friendly content guidelines they have more examples like profanity like these ones um used outside the start of the video now this is another thing that I wanted to bring attention to this says after 15 seconds right so you read this and you're like oh I just wait 15 seconds and then I can say whatever swear words I want no that's not true over here it says profanities used after the first eight seconds may receive ad Revenue pray you don't accidentally say one of the new profanities between 8 and 15 seconds okay there's so many things to unpack here I know okay first of all going back to the exhaustive list of swear words what is or is not a swear word um for example the r word many people today will be like I don't say that word does that mean it's a swear word it's definitely an offensive word to many people to many other people they still happily say it so like I think am I gonna get demonetized you have to just find out yeah well I think that that the r word specifically would probably refer to their policy like like that would fall under their policy of like you know harassment or being okay or whatever okay what about a like a regional swear like so for example g-a-s-h not really a swear in North America GS if I'm like that's cash that's not that's not a swear here but in the UK that's a swear word like that's pretty bad it's like an actual swear I don't live there but I'm told it's way worse and I've seen comments like I'm not supposed to say it I just said I'm not supposed to say it on the invar videos anymore I've seen lots of comments of being like whoa I can't believe you said that uh so is that a swear word or not do they have Regional lists how does it work okay wait a second yeah I mean that's a great question I had never heard uh the the the the word you just spelled out I guess that we're trying not to say did I say about you yeah okay yeah until I met you and then I was like oh I was saying this a lot it's great phonetically amazing it sounds great yeah for sure um to refer to something I I the question I had earlier about the first eight eight to 15 seconds it's right here you profanity used in the first eight to 15 seconds you can earn limited or no ad Revenue wait why does this say eight to Fifteen because because these guidelines the the update from November says don't use any profanity in the first eight seconds or you could be demonetized okay okay and then this one says don't use any profanity after the first 15 seconds and so we're in the first 15 seconds or you could be demonstrating so rather than just pick a number they just they have another space in the document where they say eight to Fifteen because for 8 to 15 is not even the same as 0 to 15 yeah which includes 8 to 15. 8 to 15 it's like okay you can swear from zero to eight but you can Square from eight to Fifteen and then you can swear again at 15 Beyond yeah yeah so this is the whole thing that people are really like complaining about because prior to November the rule was actually Pro so prior to April the rule was basically like you know there's no like beginning of the video thing it's just kind of like oh the whole video is the same watch your swear words or whatever in April 2021 they were like you can swear in the first 30 seconds yeah so here it is an update in April 2021 and they say second we're also expanding monetization to allow for adult themes and the usage of moderate profanity in the first 30 seconds so in April they said swear in the first 30 seconds totally fine November 2022 they roll out this relatively silent update they don't make a blog post about it they don't like tell people it just kind of appears on the site and then people's videos start getting demonetized because now you can't swear in the first Whole 30 seconds you can only swear from eight to okay so 30 seconds I I had heard the thing with Google in general and YouTube specifically is with their algorithms they never want to tell you exactly how it works because they don't want people to game the system right right you don't want to be able to know exactly how pagerank works so that you can get your site to the top of Google even though it's not a high value site so they always obscure it purposefully right and because of that there's always this like lore that gets passed around between YouTube creators who have done a lot enough experimentation and they share this lore with one another and so I had heard that if you had profanity or such or violence or whatever in the first minute that was a bad thing right and so yeah yeah it sounds the legend of the yeah of the algorithm it sounds like in April they explicitly were like you can actually have that in the first 30 seconds now or maybe after 30 seconds like they've reduced it from a minute to 30. and then they're just like kind of calling it back but the whole thing is weird because what is the difference between profanity being in the beginning of the video verse at all it comes down to I think like the whole thing with this is that advertisers like a whole reason demonetization exists because there's advertisers don't want they do not want their brand associated with certain things right you don't want to see a Disney movie and the video starts and it's Isis getting decapitated like decapitating people yeah because then Disney's like whoa these things go together apparently our monkey brains are gonna think these things go together I think Isis likes this type of toothpaste I won't buy it which I think is just kind of dumb right like they don't want their ad to be shown but besides some of the advertisers are dumb of us Apes I think it's dumb of advertising I don't know that that like follows logically I think it's kind of stupid like for me for each individual let's say I'm the kind of person who loves swearing which I am if I watch that content I'm not offended by that content right it doesn't register as offensive to my brain right I'm just like this is normal this is fine yeah so therefore if you put a Disney movie or whatever Advertiser or sensitive stuff beside that stuff I don't see that as being a problem right it's only the people who work there that see it as a problem it's only people who it's people who do have a problem with the stuff which isn't me yeah which isn't people in my living room yeah who who have a problem so why does it even work this way why doesn't it just work like hey we're going to show your ad to people who are interested in your thing and we're going to show it before videos that they like that's all it needs to be right but yeah I mean it it brings up the interesting question of like should advertisers have this kind of kind of worry of their brand being associated with certain things or certain like Behavior or Vibes you know and I feel like that's always going to be the case you know like Brands like part of part of having a brand is building like a certain identity around that brand like people know us for providing this service and you know being family friendly I guess like you wouldn't expect Disney to to put out like suddenly their entire content they're not gonna put a poster on like the gates of Auschwitz they're not gonna put Like a Star Wars poster right but like that is a physical thing in the world that is not personalized that's out in the world right it's this is all we have to remember that this advertising scheme is coming from TV old media which I think is the is the tension here because YouTube wants YouTube Google wants YouTube to be TV right they want they want to have that like sort of respectable nature to it I think that YouTube at you know all of these changes that they've made over the years I have been towards becoming more of like an established mainstream respectable platform and and a bit away from being kind of like the wild west social platform that is I don't know well I would argue this kind of goes the other way not not Twitter so much as like 4chan maybe that's the extreme it's like why is there a time component to this at all right like to what well why is it don't swear in the first eight seconds right but after that you can swear so it's it's the same video so why does it matter well it matters because that first part of the video that's the part that's gonna come directly after the ad so what they're doing is they're saying okay maybe originally in the before times you couldn't put this this ad next to a video that contains swearing at all and then they go well what if the swearing is far away and then they get closer and closer and closer what if it's a minute away what if it's eight seconds away and they're just like and eventually it's what if it doesn't matter at all and they're swearing like so this is just eight seconds of distance between Europe this is what's so confusing and cussing this is what's so confusing about this these last few changes I mean it's like from April 2021 to November there were a few changes in between there but that's what makes this whole thing so confusing is because they changed it from being you if you swear any time in the video they be treated basically the same it doesn't matter whether you say the f word at five seconds or at 32 seconds or at 32 minutes um it's all the same and then they changed it in April to say just kidding you can swear in the first 30 seconds and and we'll treat that differently uh and now they're now they're shortening so you're saying they're saying you're saying there's flip they're flip-flopping is that what you're saying well I guess it was maybe it's not honestly the whole thing is so confusing because I guess there was there was there have also been changes to the way that they treat certain profanities so like there was like extreme profanity and moderate profanity so like in the first 30 seconds you can only do moderate profanity and now you can use any profanity you want so if five or eight seconds if I wait eight to Fifteen seconds let's say call it 20 just to be safe I can go with see you next Tuesday f word see you next whatever I want and I'm good yeah is that how it works now uh after eight seconds you can say whatever you want although as we saw in the advertiser friendly content guidelines here there's a difference between like you can earn full ab Revenue this content can earn and revenue uh if you use profanity after 15 seconds if you use profanity in between the first 8 to 15 seconds you might get limited say profanity in the before that in the first seven seconds you're not gonna you're gonna be fully demonetized really so I you know I'll give them kudos for the fact that this this table right here is clearer than it's ever been yeah because they actually give you examples of the of these swear words here they want to monetize every video they do want to do that and we want to monetize this video too which is why it's sponsored by secret Lab secret lab chairs are engineered to keep you incredibly comfortable for long hours at work and play their new Titan Evo 2022 chair features four-way lumbar support Ultra comfy lines of different seat materials and more all their chairs come with up to a five year extended warranty and a 49-day return policy so head to the link in the description and check out secret lab today yes right they want to monetize as much as they can they don't really they probably don't really care about the advertisers Chick-fil-A Christian values right they just want to get yeah money doesn't care and probably the advertisers don't care either it's just like the audience that they're imagining is going to be offended by these things and you know to be fair this is probably based off research again that's so stupid because the internet is about personalization like in Old media a TV you know I'm in an airport the TV is playing anyone could be seeing that ad anyone could be watching that but now we're talking about my phone that I'm holding so if I think the content is Savory it's Savory it doesn't matter what the guy next to me on the bus thinks he's not watching my phone this is just for me so are you are you suggesting that because we live in this era of personalization uh these Services should have the ability to kind of use this data that has been collected about us which they already have which they already have to serve us different levels of well serve as the level of like appropriateness that we are okay yeah I'm I've already told your data graph that I'm into this stuff so show me whatever ad because it doesn't matter you see what I'm saying so under that system would creators be able to just kind of do whatever they want and then trust that Google is going to serve them or give them ad revenue from the advertisers that want to advertise on like crazy you know swear swear-filled content I guess it's like um do we end up arriving I guess what I'm saying is that there shouldn't be the advertisers just shouldn't have a choice like you just get put wherever that would be what I'm but I understand why they wouldn't want that which is why we arrived arrived at the situation we have right I'm just saying it's kind of arbitrary and a lot illogical I agree like if you've determined that I'm in the market for your product I'm in the market for what's the most wholesome product I don't know like baby butt wipes baby butt wipes you know I'm in the market for flavored Cheerios I'm in the market for the most wholesome product you have determined I'm your target market but I also like to watch videos that are very unsavory and have lots of swearing and Gore and violence and just the worst stuff Satanism ah I mean obviously this is like an extreme example there's not going to be many people like that there could be like millions billions of people like that I guess if you're in the market for baby wipes yeah but maybe you're looking for like the edgy baby wipes but I'm what I'm saying is like you've determined I'm one of your customers why do you think I'm like a why make a judgment call about my morality and my tastes and preferences just show me the damn ad and then I'll go on and watch the content that I like well I guess I guess I agree with you that you know in this in this world where we've already given up all our data and they have all this information about us already you know we might as well use that data now to make uh using YouTube and creating content for social platforms like easier for everybody uh by not trying to apply the single standard uh to to everyone I mean like it's based on TV right like as you say everyone's gonna see it so they were sorry now I think I I mean I I agree with you uh about about the theoretical proposition there I'm just I don't know if it's realistic because I think what YouTube is trying to be is TV and if they uh allow the situation where you know whatever goes everyone can just like make crazy violent content we didn't even talk about that or like drug references there's new rules about that that have affected gaming creators if they let it be like a wild west uh I don't think they're gonna get the type of uh I don't know what you call it Prestige uh respect yeah that they would expect well I could see or that they want I think just I think it's the brush the brushes we've chosen that are annoying me like it's swearing and it's violence but it really should be things like I don't want my brand to come before a conspiracy theory video I don't or for example I'm not choosing sides here but let's just say I don't want to be in front of an anti-vaxx misinformation video I don't want to be in front of a flat Earth video I don't want to be in front of you know some kind of like key issue um I I have no problem with advertisers you know specifying which channels they don't want to be in front of or something like that because they don't want to give money to those people right right those creators or something like that but just to be like well swearing is just bad this is interesting so like you're you're totally on the side of like we should let him we should let him fly like YouTube should be a platform where there's no like everyone just kind of makes the content they want with no uh thought towards like you know uh standards of what is appropriate well not necessarily it's up to them like for example this this organization say the WAN show yeah there's no swearing it's not because we're afraid of getting demonetized it's because we want to have the show playing in as many living rooms and cars and headsets as possible right and if you're driving home with your kid in the car and there's a bunch of swearing you can't listen to that with your when you're driving a kid from school so that limits your own audience so we've made the decision as a business to be like let's min max this and just bleep our squares or say poop instead of the other one and it's not that hard and we make more money right especially because for our type of content it's not crucial that we right you know let like let things fly you know and I think that the difference between uh Linus mini group and other groups of YouTubers or individual YouTubers is that they they might have a brand that relies a lot more on hey guys I'm just sitting down I'm I'm I'm this is my completely brutal honest take you might be like a comedian a roast comedian a very edgy comedian who relies on swearing or you might be like a faith-based channel that like really relies on not there's different dimensions right there's different forces pushing you for us it's there is a commercial Force pushing us to not swear but then there might be a moral Force to push you not but like you said it might be a functional Force to push you to swear if it's up to you to figure that out but like you said I feel like even if swearing would benefit our content in some in some way like maybe it would make us seem a little bit more relatable or make us seem a little bit more you know honest I guess uh at the end of the day do you really like it doesn't really like fundamentally change the content if you use the real f word or if you say like frickin or something like does it how fundamentally like it changes the vibe yeah well I think YouTube about authenticity and if you're yeah you're coming off as being inauthentic because you know you're just like oh shoot like if that's you if you're Ned Flanders but if they know that you're doing that as a business decision then they're kind of like I get it they can understand it but it's still inauthentic like there's there's a part of me there's a part of me that feels that coming onto a platform like YouTube and just completely letting loose and saying like I don't even care about the advertise and I don't even care what's good as a business decision I'm gonna make the content that I want to make it's like that's great you should you could you should do that if you want to do that but you also need to understand that that's going to have ramifications for the success of your of your brand right there's another element of this we haven't talked about where you see two different parts of YouTube fighting each other and so this is the violence part so is it the case that if you are a game streamer and you stream first person shooters and you start your video with a bunch of headshots can you get demonetized for that yes so that's what I brought up earlier is that they did also in this November of 22 update I'm not as familiar with what things were like before but this one says that game violence directed at a real named person or acts that are manufactured to create shocking experiences such as brutal Mass killing implied moment of death such as bombing a building with people inside may not receive ad revenue does that include just like Battlefield like a jet comes over and just this is what this is why this is a big reason why gaming YouTubers were so affected by this because you know especially in the first uh in the first seconds of a video you're trying to grab people's attention so often there will be gameplay there will be violence Sizzle reel yeah like a highlight reel right of the best stuff and hey we're playing graphic war video games yeah because that's the biggest video games in the world right and we're gonna show the best moments best means mass murder yeah that's our society exactly and so YouTube is rewarding me and incentivizing me to put these best moments at the top but they're also admonishing me for doing that because advertisers don't like that so what am I supposed to do YouTube high retention and no monetization yeah so but like that's what's so funny is that like standard gameplay where gory injuries are present they say standard gameplay like they know that this is standard for game stuff they say after the first eight seconds uh it's it's okay you you may receive ad Revenue which is so funny because and this is what's also interesting they have a separate page about gaming stuff specifically and they added that recently the gaming and monetization article yeah here it is and they but in this update they Loop it all under violence so this was part of the problem is that I'm like okay what what what types of violence that you're describing here are specifically game stuff and which parts are like like they say police seizures as part of law enforcement it's all very confusing and I think that that for me is the biggest takeaway from all this like it's really unfortunate that in this recent round uh gaming Creator specifically were the ones affected in other situations you know during the adpocalypse it was more kind of like a broad stroke so so that sucks and I think that the the thing that most people are criticizing YouTube for here is the lack of communication like change the guidelines you know but like you said the algorithm has been this kind of like mysterious thing and that's kind of part of the whole deal but I think that needs to change now especially if they're going to be making such drastic changes like this I feel like YouTube has a responsibility to communicate this yeah you should be able to at least get an email instead of having just know that page exists yeah um what about shorts also though eight to 15 seconds it could be like half a year short so you can open with some colloquial language you're just going to get demonetized on your short like that's a long time in a short I wonder if and I I think that these do apply consistently to shorts like to all content so uh and and live streams like that's the other thing when you're doing a live stream you don't know what is going to pop up and if you're playing a game you don't know if if something's gonna pop up and then it's like horribly inappropriate don't hit the player hit the game exactly exactly so it's a mess and um at the same time I think YouTube has a responsibility to communicate but at the same time I think as creators we also have a responsibility to kind of like you know try and play it safe a little bit until we get to this Utopia that you're describing where well it still has problems like well let's say I'm not a Utopia I log into my account when I'm showing my kid a video for kids yeah and then there's like a Viagra commercial in front of it I'm like oops sorry Bobby didn't mean for you to see that well exactly but you know I think the Counterpoint to that that I've seen is get your kid an account what or there's YouTube kids yeah there's kids versions of these apps I actually don't believe in showing YouTube to kids it's pretty trash content well that's a different talk link though there's some really good compilations of like just all the dinosaurs dinos yeah they loved it kind of Jurassic Park Okay the Jurassic world I got her a book I got my kid books yeah right it's just YouTube the kids can't reopen the book it's a phone you're not wearing headphones this whole time oh whoops you told me to do it oh I know it looks like I'm like this guy wait does it we have to do the outro thanks for watching talk linked uh in case you were wondering what show this is maybe it'll come back am I involved in the outro you're in the video see you later oh my God\n"