Update:  Fullscreen has sent out a statement regarding the comments made below by Howard Pinsky. 

"On April 5, 2018, a small group of Fullscreen creators received emails that mistakenly implied that modifications to YouTube’s partnership program were the cause of the removal of approximately 160 channels from our network. That was inaccurate, and we’ve since revised our emails to creators accordingly."

"That revised messaging states: The team here at Fullscreen is reaching out to let you know that your agreement with Fullscreen, Inc. has been terminated. Due to the nature of your uploads and because your uploads may potentially infringe on the right of others or potentially violates applicable laws or regulations, including without limitation YouTube’s Terms of Service and/or YouTube’s Community Guidelines, we feel it best that we part ways. Thank you for your understanding, and good luck with your YouTube channel."

Network issues

Murmurs amongst the YouTube community have led to the notion that multi-channel networks will suffer under YouTube's crackdown on content policy.

According to Polygon, some creators partnered with Fullscreen recieved an email this month letting them know that their agreement with Fullscreen had been terminated with no explanation. Approximately 160 creators were hit with the news via the email.

Fullscreen reportedly told one of its former creators the news was “a decision that comes from YouTube and is out of our control.”

"The team here at Fullscreen is reaching out to let you know that your agreement with Fullscreen, Inc. has been terminated. Due to the nature of your uploads and because your uploads may potentially infringe on the right of others or potentially violates applicable laws or regulations, including without limitation YouTube’s Terms of Service and/or YouTube’s Community Guidelines, we feel it best that we part ways. Thank you for your understanding, and good luck with your YouTube channel." The email read.

Dropping like flies

Fullscreen's director of creator marketing Howard Pinsky reportedly sent messages to a Fullscreen Discord server, explaining the decision.

“YouTube is ‘forcing’ all networks to remove creators that are at risk of violating terms of service (copyright issues, misleading thumbnails, etc),” Pinsky said.

"This isn’t a decision from the networks, but one from YouTube. They’re really starting to clean up the platform. Fullscreen (and other networks) have zero say in this. This is a decision from YouTube. From what they explained to us, ‘many channels that posed a risk of violating YouTube’s terms of service, even if no strikes were present, were released.’”

Multiple channels, multiple risk

MCN's generally have a large number of creators under their wing, and may not necessarily vet the content that said creators publish. If creators under an MCN break community guidelines, that can have a knock on effect on the network itself. In short, this may explain why creators have been let go, to minimise risk.

According to Social Blade CEO Jason Urgo, YouTube's 'Know Your Customer' policy is designed to put pressure on MCNs.

In an email to Polygon, Urgo said that this policy "in effect forces MCNs to either watch every video uploaded by their partners, or at least be reasonably confident none of the videos they are uploading could possibly either in the present or in the future violate or even come close to violating a YouTube guideline/terms,"

“The way this is enforced is that if a network has more then 50 ‘abuse events’ (an abuse event is when a channel gets terminated or loses their monetisation privileges) in a 90 day period they lose the ability to partner any other channel for a period of time."

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