YouTube’s content guidelines are generally fair, but a few rules go a bit overboard in the name of ad revenue. There was a time when creators cowered away from cussing at all in their videos for fear of being demonetized, but Google started allowing “moderate profanity” about two years back. Stronger swears would still result in limited ad revenue if they were used in the first seven seconds or throughout a video, but that, too, has now changed.
In a video that went live on the Creator Insider channel today, YouTube’s Head of Monetization Policy Experience explained the updated policy. Now, videos with “strong profanity” in the first seven seconds (think F word and adjacent) are eligible to earn full ad revenue.
This doesn’t mean YouTube is turning into a Quentin Tarantino movie, though. If a video uses strong profanity consistently throughout, or if the title and/or thumbnail include these types of words, it will only be eligible for limited monetization.
What was with the 7-second rule anyway?
Advertisers wanted to distance themselves from swear-laden intros
The logic behind this change boils down to evolving industry norms and new abilities that let advertisers better match their commercials with certain content.
YouTube revealed that it had introduced this seven-second rule to “align with broadcast standards,” explaining that “Advertisers expected ads on YouTube to have distance between profanity and the ad that just served.” As ad platforms continue to get more advanced, advertisers can now better target “their desired level of profanity.”
Advertisers expected ads on YouTube to have distance between profanity and the ad that just served.
Nonetheless, YouTube’s Community Guidelines still apply, so the company is advising creators that the new policy “is not a free license to use swear words in any context.”
Incidentally, these changes were announced on the same day that YouTube started rolling out a new age verification system that uses AI to tell teens from adults, based purely on the videos they search for and watch. Teens identified by the system will see additional protections applied to their accounts, such as digital wellbeing controls and the removal of personalized ads.
