Gone are the days where you could watch a YouTube video in peace. Whether it’s at the start or middle or sometimes both, there is always an ad interrupting you. Finding a video that isn’t riddled with advertising is a rare, rare gem. Luckily for us though, that gem may not be so hard to find anymore. YouTube has announced that they will be preventing videos with less than 10k views from displaying ads in their videos. This move comes as a surprise seeing as YouTube made $8.5b in 2015 from advertising, so why would they restrict their lucrative stream of revenue? And no, this hasn’t happened due to the frustration and complaints of viewer, if only… It turns out that companies have been removing their advertisements the video-sharing platform after appeared next to videos with controversial content. In a bid to halt a potential exodus, YouTube has imposed this viewership restriction to limit advertisement to content creators and influencers. This was done with an understanding that extremist and controversial videos will not have the viewership or audience to reach 10k views. It is unclear whether this will have any success as there is no way to limit the number of views a certain video can gain. Another option for YouTube to protect their revenue is to remove extremist content from their site, however, this could ultimately could another headache for the platform. There is a fine line between free expression and hateful content, as stated in YouTube’s community guidelines. So how would they begin to remove content, will an impartial board need to established in order to revise content? Or would this decision be at the discretion of individuals within the organisation? As for aspiring YouTubers who wish to earn an income through the platform, it simply means that newer or smaller channels simply need to work on growing their viewership before they can start earning money.
