YouTube censorship
Is YouTube Trying To Cancel Hunting Videos?
YouTube demonetizing hunting videos is nothing new. In fact, a quick search yields results going back to 2018 on this topic.
However, a recent update to the media giant’s “Ad-Friendly Content Guidelines” has placed a new set of restrictions on hunting content creators, making it more difficult than ever to produce content that hunters want to see and still make ad revenue.
For those not familiar with how YouTube works, the concept is simple. First, you create a channel and upload your videos. If your audience grows large enough, YouTube runs ads before and during your videos, then gives you a percentage of the revenue.
The more subscribers and views you get, the more money you can make. The top YouTube producers in the world make millions of dollars through this program.
In recent years, the popularity of hunting-based YouTube shows such as Seek One, Hush, The Hunting Public, and others have grown tremendously. Some of the most popular hunting channels have hundreds of thousands of subscribers and generate a significant amount of revenue.
This week, several large channels that include hunting content, including Seek One, received notice that they would not be able to generate any revenue for the next 30 days due to a violation of YouTube’s content guidelines. Like most things Google-owned, the message was very vague with no specifics given and nobody to speak to about their decision.
