TheQuartering [9/6/2023]
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While shedding light on how YouTube chooses to either monetize a video or not, the YouTube channel MxR Plays made an in-depth video discussing how they lost their ability to monetize their videos on the Google-owned video-sharing platform.
Echoing the voice of many YouTubers, in an emotional video titled, “YouTube has gotten rid of our ability to monetize our videos”, the YouTuber-couple MxR and Potastic Panda lashed out against YouTube.
In an effort to highlight the unfair treatment they were subjected to, the YouTubers drew attention to their recent upload titled: kids are fricken stupid.
“The ‘kids are freaking stupid’ video we just uploaded which is literally about kids being stupid, we completely censored the absolute bejesus out of it. All curse words are gone. Anything that might be an appropriate is gone….There’s a freaking mannequin in there, a mannequin that we completely blocked out. Like we tried our absolute best. That is something the bot deems as not suitable for advertisers. So that’s kind of the level of sensitivity we’re talking about,” said MxR.
Generally speaking, YouTubers tend to make income off of their YouTube videos only if they are approved by the platform. Any video that is up for monetization is bifurcated into two categories by the platform’s bot: yellow and green.
Videos with a green dollar-sign are the ones that are approved for monetization, and the ones with a yellow dollar-sign have limited ads as the bot deems them inappropriate. YouTubers can then appeal for a manual-review wherein an actual person would review the videos and give them a green signal if everything is okay.
Here’s where the whole hassle began: despite uploading their videos and waiting for over two days to one week, they weren’t being reviewed by YouTube, essentially making it impossible for MxR to monetize the videos. It is also worth noting that 90% of the videos uploaded by MxR Plays tend to get a yellow sign, the YouTubers say.