How to use Community Guidelines to your advantage?

SENSITIVE CONTENT

The purpose of the rules on YouTube is to create a safe environment for users and to protect both creators and viewers, and especially minors. Therefore, the Community Guidelines contain rules aimed at ensuring the safety of children on the platform, protecting users from sexual content, nudity and self-harm. In the case of educational content, there may be an exception and the video will not be downloaded, but hidden and the user can only find it using a specific keyword and then must confirm that he is of legal age.

TIP: Be very careful with video thumbnails, they must also not contain any sensitive content, which could arouse sexual excitement. This type of thumbnails can be taken down by YouTube and even given to the creator sanction.

VIOLENT OR DANGEROUS CONTENT

Another category in Community Guidelines is violent and dangerous content. YouTube defines it as various hate speech, violence, physical attacks or content on the platform that promotes harmful and dangerous behavior. When creating videos, be especially careful that your content does not violate any rules.

TIP: When shooting a reaction video, focus on commenting on the activity or work of the person you are reacting to, avoid cursing, mocking or hating, which could be evaluated as hate speech.

REGULATED GOODS

YouTube has defined in its rules the so-called regulated goods, such as alcohol, pyrotechnics, nicotine or non-prescription drugs. This type of merchandise is prohibited by theCommunity Guidelines from being promoted in any content on the platform. You can't promote him in videos, but also in comments. Avoid creating content that would encourage users to buy alcohol or other regulated goods.

WHAT ARE THE CONSEQUENCES OF VIOLATING THE COMMUNITY GUIDELINES?

Rules that no one follows are useless rules. In order to ensure compliance with the Community Guidelines, YouTube has implemented a method of control and drawing consequences for their possible violation. YouTube's compliance tools include sanctions (Community Guidelines Strikes) and age restriction of content.

SANCTIONS

If YouTube determines that your content violates the Community Guidelines, it will be deleted and you will receive a message informing you of the violation. If you have violated the rules for the first time, you will only receive a warning, after all, everyone can make mistakes. If you violate the rules again, youwill receive the first sanction and your channel will operate with certain restrictions, for example you will not be able to post content for 7 days. For further violation of the Community Guidelines, you will be given a second sanction, which will also prevent the channel from publishing content for the next 2 weeks. And if you receive a third sanction within 90 days, your channel will be permanently banned. Also, sanctions cannot be lifted by removing inappropriate content, they will be deleted after 90 days.

Of course, if you believe that you have been wrongly sanctioned you can appeal.

AGE LIMITATION OF CONTENT

On YouTube, a situation may arise when the content does not violate the rules, but is not suitable for all viewers, specifically for minor viewers. In such a situation, you have the option to set an age restriction content directly when publishing the video. However, if your video contains parts that should not be accessible to minors and you do not set an age restriction on the video, you cannot avoid this. YouTube will evaluate this for you and flag your video itself as 18+ content if necessary.

HOW TO USE COMMUNITY GUIDELINES TO YOUR ADVANTAGE?

Learning Community Guidelines will help you get to know YouTube better as an online platform, avoid unnecessary mistakes and use the potential of your channel to the fullest.

AVOID SANCTIONS AND DON'T RISK YOUR CHANNEL

As you have noticed, violating the rules can lead to the complete cancellation of your YouTube channel, which is perhaps the highest punishment a creator can receive. If you know the Community Guidelines intimately, yousimply avoid creating content that could in any way violate the ruleson YouTube and you don't have to worry about the sanctions and restrictions they bring.

AVOID COLLABORATION WITH DOUBTFUL CREATORS

By knowing the Community Guidelines, you can see if the content of other creators is in accordance with the rules, or if it is not on the edge. Thanks to a new look at the videos of other YouTubers, you can evaluate which colleagues it is appropriate to collaborate with on joint content, and vice versa, who could endanger your work by not following the rules or balancing on their edge.

PLAY BY THE RULES AND PROGRESS

YouTube is not interested in supporting channels that regularly violate the Community Guidelines. At the same time, if you continue to violate the rules, your channel will constantly receive sanctions with restrictions that will slow down the progress of your channel. Play by the rules, avoid penalties, create valuable content, engage with the community and build a successful YouTube channel.

We understand that studying Community Guidelines may be less fun than making videos, but if you want to keep moving forward and build a successful YouTube channel, this is one of the basics you need to master. We're keeping our fingers crossed for you to make great videos and if you have any questions don't hesitate to contact.