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YouTube creates a team to improve support quality, more changes in the coming months

In the past weeks, several large YouTubers have been hit with apparent copyright violations that have led to video removals and loss of revenue. In response, YouTube has announced they are working on new initiatives to improve communications, starting with a dedicated team to minimize mistakes.

The post on Google’s support forum detailing the recent events and upcoming changes is by a member of the YouTube Policy team. It was tweeted earlier this afternoon by YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki and mentioned channels recently affected by copyright claims.

Hi, I’m Spencer,

I’ve been a member of the YouTube Policy team since 2008 and throughout that time, I’ve seen how your input has helped YouTube get better. For example, when I started on YouTube Policy, we didn’t have an appeals process for video removals. Through user feedback, we realized that we needed to establish a channel for users to alert us to our mistakes. We eventually launched an appeals form for age-restrictions, and just recently launched an appeals form for videos rejected due to policy violations. YouTube isn’t perfect, but thanks to your feedback, we are able to learn quickly and get better.

Recently, there’s been a lot of discussion about the enforcement of our policies, from video takedowns to channel demonetization. We want you to know that we monitor video takedowns very closely, and while we haven’t seen a big change in the overall rate of removals, it’s true that we do make mistakes. For this, we’re sorry and we strive to do better by you, our community.

The good news is that the feedback you’ve raised in comments and videos on YouTube and beyond is having an impact. It’s caused us to look closely at our policies and helped us identify areas where we can get better. It’s led us to create a team dedicated to minimizing mistakes and improving the quality of our actions. And it’s encouraged us to roll out some initiatives in the coming months that will help strengthen communications between creators and YouTube support. We’ll also make improvements to increase transparency into the status of monetization claims. And of course, as we work to implement these improvements as quickly as we can, we’ll continue to take your feedback seriously.

— Spencer from YouTube’s Policy Team

The largest and most immediate change is the creation of a human team to minimize mistakes and improve the quality of actions taken. YouTube is also planning to “roll out some initiatives in the coming months that will help strengthen communications between creators and YouTube support.” Specifically, they will increase the transparency into the status of monetization claims.

YouTube claims there hasn’t been a big change in the overall rate of video removals and that the automated system meant to deal with violation claims and the appeals process is at fault. Implemented in the early days of the video site, it has not adapted to the ever growing user base and increasing amount of people who have come to rely on YouTube to make a living.

YouTube is working as quickly as they can to implement the improvements and hopefully they will improve the situation for many of the site’s creators.

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Avatar for Abner Li Abner Li

Editor-in-chief. Interested in the minutiae of Google and Alphabet. Tips/talk: abner@9to5g.com