#YouTubeIsOverParty / YouTube Advertiser-Friendly Controversy

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Overview

The YouTube Advertisement-Friendly Controversy and #YouTubeIsOverParty hashtag refer to an online backlash regarding YouTube's enforcement of advertising-friendly guidelines prohibiting the monetization of videos containing certain kinds of content. The guidelines were widely discussed online after several high-profile YouTubers complained about having their videos flagged in late August 2016.

Background

On August 31st, several YouTubers received notifications that some of their videos had been flagged as unfriendly to advertisers, which subsequently removed monetization for those videos. In the notifications, YouTube cited their "advertiser-friendly content guidelines,"^[7] which contain a several controversial prohibitions (shown below).

That day, YouTuber Philip DeFranco tweeted the YouTube would be removing most of his monetization, adding that he was "not going to censor" himself (shown below).^[8]

Developments

YouTuber Reactions

On August 31st, 2016, YouTuber Chris Ray Gun uploaded a video in which he breaks the new content restrictions while listing each one (shown below, left). Meanwhile, DeFranco uploaded a video announcing several of his videos had been flagged, including an episode discussing the Annaliese Nielsen Lyft rant (shown below, right).

[This video has been removed]

Also on August 31st, YouTuber Cr1t1kal uploaded a satirical video about the new guidelines titled "YouTube Friendly Video" (shown below, left). The following day, September 1st, YouTuber exurb1a uploaded an open letter to YouTube, which sarcastically thanked the video sharing site for implementing the controversial new guidelines (shown below, right). Also on September 1st, the Chris Ryan Gun and Philip DeFranco videos reached the front page of the /r/videos subreddit.^[1]^[2]

#YoutubeIsOverParty

On Septmber 1st the hashtag #YouTubeIsOverParty began trending on Twitter, and as of the time of this article has been tweeted over 424 thousand times.^[10] The most popular Tweet coming from Paul Joseph Watson, which has recieved over 9,000 likes and 5,000 retweets.

This is the end game of allowing all your content to be swallowed up by social media ghettos. #YouTubeIsOverParty pic.twitter.com/ckSNa8YUmj

— Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) September 1, 2016

YouTube's Response

In a response to an inquiry from Kotaku,^[3] a YouTube spokesperson claimed that the advertiser-friendly guidelines had not changed, but that the site had "recently improved the notification and appeal process to ensure better communication.

YouTube later made an official response in the Google Product Forums in which they clarified their recent changes(shown below)^[11]

News Media Coverage

In the coming days, several news sites published articles about the YouTube controversy, including Kotaku,^[3] Tube Filter,^[4] Mashable^[5] and We The Unicorns.^[6]