YouTube has confirmed that it will be introducing stricter moderating policies for its videos. The online video site has received quite a bit of criticism over the past year, most recently the controversy surrounding YouTuber Logan Paul who recently published – and subsequently took down – a video featuring a dead body. Now, however, it seems as though YouTube wants to put an end to this controversy and prevent any future scenarios from occurring by introducing a series of new moderating policies aimed at the Google Preferred Program.
The Google Preferred program is designed with major advertisers in mind, allowing them to advertise directly on videos posted on the top 5 percent of YouTube channels, the only catch being that the internet giant sells advertising slots at a higher price than usual. But after a series of controversial videos uploaded by the top 5 percent, a number of advertisers have pulled their ad funding from the site over the course of the last twelve months, tarnishing YouTube’s relationship with them. As a direct result of this, the company will be introducing a new team of 10,000 employees whose role will be to manually moderate all Google Preferred videos before they are published. As well as this, in order to improve efficiency, new AI software that flags any videos it deems inappropriate will be used alongside the manual moderating. As a disciplinary measure towards Logan Paul who has largely prompted the introduction of the new policies, YouTube has also announced that he will be removed from the Google Preferred program, while his YouTube Red collaborations have been put on hold for the foreseeable future and his appearance in the fourth season of “Foursome” has been scrapped entirely.
The newly updated policies are rumored to go hand in hand with a new list that will be provided to advertisers of white-listed independent YouTube content producers who have proven themselves to be trustworthy, as well as a number of media companies that also produce content on the site. Only time will tell if YouTube’s new moderating policies are effective in preventing future controversies, but the decision will likely be seen as a move in the right direction towards improving the site’s relationship with advertisers across the globe. If all goes well, it could even entice some into rethinking their decision to pull funding.