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YouTube tries to calm demonetisation fears: "We know the last year has not been easy for many of you"

YouTube tries to calm demonetisation fears: "We know the last year has not been easy for many of you"

YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki has again apologised for the struggles facing creators, although the company’s lack of action is leading to an increased level of frustration.

“We know the last year has not been easy for many of you. But we’re committed to listening and using your feedback to help YouTube thrive,” she said in a blog post.

“Our community continues to grow at a healthy, responsible rate. Over the last year, channels earning five figures annually grew more than 35 per cent, while channels earning six figures annually grew more than 40 per cent. While we’re proud of this progress, I know we have more work to do.”

Wojcicki also claimed the company has improved response times to email communications, as well as improving both its monetisation icon system and community engagement tools.

She also outlined a new sponsorship system that will allegedly help monetise content beyond just relying on ads. Those who have tested the system have supposedly seen “substantial increases” in overall revenue.

Viewer suppression

However, several big names continue to bemoan not only the platform’s demonetisation issues but also its apparent ‘viewer suppression’ problem. The latter refers to content not appearing on a regular viewer’s homepage or in their trending or recommended tabs.

In addition, creators such as Philip DeFranco, who regularly covers controversial subjects such as Syria, are claiming widespread problems with the discoverability of their content. Polygon reports that DeFranco claims to be about 300k to 450k views down per video.

There have also been allegations that YouTube employs secretive ratings systems when filtering content that it has not shared with the community. If true, this leaves Wojcicki’s claims about increased transparency in tatters.

Even the mighty PewDiePie has spoken out about the issues.

“Every time I upload a video, I sort of have to guess, ‘okay, it went yellow. Why? Why was it demonetised?’” Kjellberg said. “I just think this could be solved so easily if we just knew what the rules were and the system was more clear, and we had better guidelines as a creator.”

Whether this will result, as many have for a long time speculated now, in a creator exodus remains to be seen. But certainly the window remains open for other platforms to step in, and it looks as if some may be ready to grasp it.

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