YouTube's Inauthentic Content Policy - Explained!

0:00AI can actually allow people to make a lot of videos. Sometimes those videos are great and it really enhances creativity and you can create a higher volume of high quality content that we want to encourage and have in YPP. But that exact same new tool can allow you to make lots of videos really quickly that are very similar. They're very generic and don't really have a narrative arc and don't really show your creativity. So the same technology really enables great stuff, but it also enables stuff that's kind of content farming, yeah. And that's the stuff that we don't want to

0:30have in YPP. Matt, thank you so much for joining us and I'm so glad we have a chance to talk about this because we have a lot of questions from creators who are just they're trying to better understand our policies, previously what we were calling inauthentic content and we want to break it down a little bit more for

0:47them. So first of all, just to say out loud, like there's no change in our underlying policy at all. I'm not here today to announce any kind of a new policy. We haven't made any changes. I'm here just to try to break it down in a little more details to help creators understand what we allow and don't allow as it relates to YPP. There's kind of

1:06three buckets we'll talk about today. One is generic and repetitive, like content that is sort of the same and repetitive. It's made with templates and there's not much variation from video to video. Like that's that is not something that our viewers wish to see a lot of and that we want to provide an incentive for people to make and

1:25therefore we don't want it in YPP. The second is content that we might call, you know, off-putting or you know, distressing. That's the type of content that we say like, you know, look, if you're trying to just get views by doing something emotionally manipulative or makes distressing content, that's not something that we want to encourage either. And then the third bucket that we'll break it down into is

1:48this something called AI personas. And this is where you may have uh created a persona that's AI and if they're talking about sensitive topics. So like AI personas maybe fine overall, but if you have AI personas that are talking about finance or legal issues or healthcare medical issues, uh we don't want to provide an incentive for that right now either. And so any of those three buckets are things that we uh will not allow into YPP if a channel

2:15has too much of those things. We have a bunch of different policies at YouTube. We have community guidelines and we also have the YouTube Partner Program policies. Can you explain what the differences are? Yeah, sure. Community guidelines are the rules of the road for what's allowed on YouTube, okay? So like certain content if we think it meets our bar of of um egregious harm, we'll say that should come down. Like we don't we don't allow sex and nudity on YouTube. Uh we don't allow hate speech on YouTube. We don't allow uh you know, suicide self-harm content on YouTube. Uh a number of policies that say like this is just too

2:49much. It doesn't belong on YouTube. We remove those. That's what community guidelines are. YPP, the YouTube Partner Program, um is totally different. Um it it is what we're going to allow what which channels are allowed to monetize, to have ads run against them, to have use our monetization features. And to be for the channel, not the videos like what community guidelines and other individual entities are about, but for channels, you know, we look at the channel as a whole. And there is a higher bar to be in the YouTube Partner Program. Anybody can upload a video, uh but not anybody can be in the YouTube

3:24Partner Program. Creators all start off as viewers. One of the reasons we want to be creators is because we love YouTube so much as viewers. And when we look at our own feeds, that's what we want. We want content that we know what channel it comes from. It couldn't be on a hundred other channels. Be original, uh authentic. Like users and viewers want to see original content, authentic content, content that's, you know,

3:46engaging, entertaining, educational. Um it's not off-putting. I mean, that's what they want to see, and that's what we want to uh monetize and provide an incentive for. When we say something is off putting, what do we mean by that? Sure. I mean, we talk about unsatisfying or off putting. Um, and maybe we give an example. Um, and or a couple of examples. Like some some of these videos you see and they show an animal in distress. And maybe uh there's this little story to it, but the core of the story is an animal in distress and then someone comes and saves the animal. And if you have a

4:19channel that is uh you know, has a lot of that content, is sort of dedicated to that kind of emotionally distressing manipulative content, um, you know, we've heard from our viewers that that's not something that they like. They find it off putting. They don't want to come back to that channel or maybe even the platform after seeing a number of those videos in the same channel, we'll remove that from YPP. We see the same thing with uh putting minors in distressing situations. They end up They might want to see it once, so they might follow the end of the video, but they don't want to see it over and over again. And so, if

4:49you have channels that are doing that, uh we're removing them from YPP. Also, one thing I would say is that we uh we're agnostic to what any tools that are used to create the content. Like, if you make it with gen AI, great. If you make it without gen AI, that's great, too. Any you know, or any other tools in there, uh the our policies are

5:08independent of how the content is made. AI is revolutionizing so many things, including the scale, the volume, the velocity of how videos can be created. Is that part of the reason why your clarifying these policies? Look, any new technology um creates all kinds of great opportunities, but can also create uh things that are, you know, not not as great. And uh AI in particular, like, yeah, you can create a lot of content,

5:35you know, inexpensively and really fast. Um, and in the past, you know, we've looked at, you know, mass production is usually kind of content farming. Now, uh AI can actually allow people to make a lot of videos. Sometimes those videos are great leveraging these tools, and it really enhances creativity, and you can create a higher volume of high-quality content that we want to encourage and have in YPP. But that exact same new tool can allow you to make lots of videos really quickly that are very similar. They're very generic and don't really have a narrative arc and don't really show your creativity. Um so the same technology really enables great

6:14stuff, but also enables stuff that's kind of content farming. And that's the stuff that we don't want to have in YPP. Whether you use AI or not, whether you use CGI or not, conventional stock, any of those things, you still want to tell a great story. I mean, that's the essence of being a creator. You're sharing your personal voice, your personal vision. Uh you're sharing hopefully an arc of stories over videos where there's a progression of your

6:36talent, your ability as a storyteller. And you can see the channel, you can become invested in the channel. And uh I think that's the part that sometimes people feel is missing. There's suddenly 300, 3,000 identical videos, like cookie-cutter videos up there. You know, sometimes we see tutorial videos uh on YouTube, and they'll say, "Hey, there's this new trend, and it's a banana, and it's a strawberry." And they're talking about stuff. And here, let me show you how to make that, and then you'll get in and make a bunch of money in YPP. And it's like, you know, if there's already a bunch of it out there, making the next one or the next

7:07channel that's making all the same kind of stuff is just, you know, it's generic, it's repetitive, um and there's just too little variation and creativity within the channel, then the channel won't end up staying in YPP or won't get in in the first place. Yeah, I think sometimes people look and see a tutorial and think if the tutorial is there, it must be okay. And that's

7:25not always the case. Definitely not. I mean, there's a bunch of these tutorials, and you know, honestly, I'd say don't waste your time. I mean, you know, focus on the core things that we talk about, which is being creative, being original, uh you know, you bringing your authentic thought process to creating content. And if you're doing that and there's variation from video to video that people find interesting and compelling and satisfying, you know, it's probably

7:50what we want to put into YPP. Sometimes creators also think that their competitors or just an upset viewer might hit that flag button over and over again and that will demonetize them or that will take their channel down. You know, that is one of many myths and I can say, you know, with a 100% conviction, it's just not true. The number of flags that a video or a channel may get has nothing to do with how an evaluation is done of that channel. In this case, we're talking about YPP. You know, when we're when we look at a channel, we're literally comparing the content in the channel and

8:28the behaviors and the creator responsibility policy. We're comparing it to what is our guidelines are. And it doesn't matter if one person has flagged it or a thousand people have flagged it or our scale detection flagged it, it's it just doesn't matter. And you know, sometimes we make mistakes. And so there's an appeal avenue for creators. They have 21 days to appeal a suspension decision. And then if it turns out, you know, you know, I've appealed but we've decided it's still you know, the right thing to do is to suspend based on the current content of the channel, people can reapply. Creators can reapply 90

9:01days later. You know, we we hope that the creator will have uploaded new new content that is the kind of content that we want in the YouTube Partner Program. And then maybe they've gotten rid of some of the content that they know is probably undesirable for that program. And we evaluate with a fresh set of eyes. And I can tell you people reapply after 90 days all the time and lots of them get back in and we're happy to have them

9:26back in. And this new language is supposed to help creators better understand what they need to do. Exactly. I mean, before we had kind of a a phrase, "inauthentic content", which, you know, realistically, that's not very helpful. Um and we recognize that. We got that feedback. Um with the this up updated language that we're providing, even though the policy hasn't changed at all, uh generic and repetitive, you know, off-putting, not satisfying, um you know, AI personas talking about sensitive topics, at least now there's a little more clarity for folks to know

9:59what not to do. Matt, thank you so much for joining us today. Oh, well, it's my pleasure. It's uh it's It's always fun to do this, and I'm I'm happy to do it anytime. Oh, I'm going to take you up on that. Thank you all for watching. Please jump in the comments with any of your questions, any of your thoughts, and

10:12keep it real.