Coronavirus: YouTube demonetises videos about disease for being 'not advertiser-friendly'
One YouTuber described policy as 'silly' after video was demonetised for simply referencing the virus
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.YouTube has removed all adverts from videos relating to the Covid-19 coronavirus outbreak for not being "advertiser-friendly".
The Google-owned platform made the announcement through its Creator Insider channel on YouTube.
"We're updating our guidelines to reflect the coronavirus outbreak as a sensitive event, and as such all videos focussed on this topic will be demonetised until further notice," Tom Leung, a product officer at YouTube, said in a video.
Under the company's advertising guidelines, topics that are deemed "sensitive" are typically unforeseen events that result in a loss of life, such as terrorist attacks, armed conflicts and global health crises.
Such topics are considered "not advertiser-friendly", according to the policy.
"Sensitive events can cause a mournful response from the public or, at times, an extreme or visceral reaction," the guidelines state. "An event must be relatively recent if it's going to be considered a sensitive event."
Some YouTube channels have complained that their videos were demonetised despite only making a passing reference to coronavirus.
YouTuber Jonathan Downey, who runs the popular channel Spawn Wave, revealed that one of his videos was hit with the policy simply for mentioning that the Game Developers Conference (GDC) was cancelled due to the outbreak.
"I made up abbreviations to say like CV, but it still gets tagged as suitable," Mr Downey tweeted. "It was in a video about GDC being cancelled, so maybe events affected by coronavirus being talked about can trigger their bot for review as well."
Gaming channel Nintendo Prime replied that the policy was "silly".
There have been more than 100,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus around the world, with close to 3,500 deaths.
Google was one of several major technology firms who met with the World Health Organisation (WHO) last month to discuss measures to prevent misinformation from being shared about the deadly virus.
Andrew Pattison, a digital business solutions manager at WHO, described the spread of false information as an "infodemic" that was "spreading faster than the virus".
Some technology firms have since cancelled events and employee travel due to fears of the outbreak's spread.
Cancelled events include Facebook's F8 developer conference, Mobile World Congress and Microsoft's MVP Summit.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments