YouTube softens new inappropriate language rules

Finally some good news for creators and streamers of gaming content on YouTube: Google’s video platform has softened the new rules for inappropriate language that hit gamer content the hardest.

With much controversy and criticism, the new YouTube community guidelines took effect in January of this year and demonetized several videos of games such as “GTA V” and “The Last of Us”, thanks to excessive violence and inappropriate language.

Now, in a recent announcement published this week, YouTube confirmed the softening of these rules and the return of monetization for videos affected by the change.

The softened rules is now in effect, and videos that lost their monetization under the rules introduced in January will be reviewed by March 10th.

YouTube’s new monetization rules

After introducing a set of “zero tolerance” rules for profanity and excessive violence, YouTube has backtracked and softened its content monetization guidelines. Now, to monetize your videos, it is allowed:

Moderate use of profanity at any point in the video
Use of profanity, moderate or heavy, after the first 7 seconds of the video, unless repeated excessively throughout the video
Songs with profanities, used as background music or as other elements in the video

The use of profanity, whether moderate or heavy, in the titles and thumbnails of the videos will still be prohibited. If this happens, the content will be demonetized and will not be able to have ads linked to it.

YouTube did not comment on changes regarding content considered violent, coming from games, and other types of restrictions present in the new community rules started in January 2023.

Some of these rules may still affect creators and streamers of games considered violent or for a mature audience, such as “GTA V”, one of the most popular videos on Google’s video platform.