In the wake of George Floyd’s death and the national protests that followed, many influencers and YouTube content creators have attempted to use their platform to boost important information related to Black Lives Matter and police brutality. However, several creators on YouTube have had their Black Lives Matter-focused videos taken down by the platform without their permission and often without even a warning.
Meghan Hughes, a YouTuber with over 400,000 subscribers, told Teen Vogue that a video she posted on June 5 that mentioned the Black Lives Matter movement and gave her viewers ideas on where to donate or how to educate themselves on antiracism was taken down two days later without her knowledge. “You should hold your family accountable for what they say and their actions,” Hughes said when addressing a question about how to handle conservative family members. “Even if you know that you might not change their mind, you still need to make your beliefs heard.”
In the title of the original video, Hughes encouraged her viewers to watch all the advertisements on her video, and explained (in the video itself) that she would be donating all of her ad revenue to Black Lives Matter-affiliated organizations. After posting on Twitter about the incident, a YouTube account replied and told her that she had violated the platform’s donation policy by encouraging her viewers to watch advertisements more than they otherwise would. Hughes retitled the video and posted it again, and it has not been taken down since.
“It’s sad that the video got taken down because I was getting a lot of response from viewers who don’t have a lot of money to donate and were excited to watch so they could donate for free,” Hughes says. “I’m still planning on donating my portion of the ad revenue, but apparently I can’t say that in the actual video.”
Hughes is one of many creators on YouTube such as Lindsey Rempalski and Lucie Fink who have had Black Lives Matter-related videos removed from the platform for violating YouTube’s donation policy. On June 9, four days after Hughes’ video was removed from the platform, YouTube published an article outlining the ways that creators are allowed to fundraise on the site. According to YouTube, creators can take any ad revenue they earn organically and donate it wherever they please, but if they encourage viewers to watch advertisements more than normal in the video title, description, or in the video itself, the video will be removed from YouTube and the creator will not be paid for the views or clicks. YouTube instead encourages creators to add a YouTube “donate” button to their videos which allows them to use their video to fundraise for YouTube selected non-profits — however, only creators with at least 100,000 subscribers are given this option.
According to Hughes, YouTube has told creators that they will be donating to racial justice initiatives to make up for the loss of donations from removing fundraising videos, but the platform has not specified which organizations they will be donating to or when this will take place.
Zoe Amira, a YouTube creator with over 78,000 subscribers, also posted a video on May 30 that encouraged viewers to watch advertisements to donate to Black Lives Matter organizations that was later taken down by the platform. Amira says that before posting her video, she tried to look up YouTube fundraising policies but couldn’t find any concrete guidelines. After deleting the introduction of her video and changing the title and description where she had originally encouraged her viewers to watch advertisements, she was finally able to get the video back on YouTube on June 25.
“I’m a little disappointed that the donation process wasn’t as easy as it could have been, but I’ve been looking into other ways to use my platform to fundraise,” Amira says. “I’m hoping to partner with brands and have them outright sponsor me for a certain amount of money per views, so people’s views can still count when I donate my revenue.”
Amira explains that YouTube creators decide the number of Google advertisements they want in their videos if the video is over ten minutes long. After this money, also known as Adsense, has been totaled, the creator gets 55 percent of the profit, while Google takes 45 percent. However, in brand sponsored videos, creators take whatever rate they negotiate from the brand and YouTube and Google are not involved in the process.
While some creators like Amira feel inspired to use their platform to fundraise in new ways, other creators have been disheartened by this process. Hannah Duggan, a YouTuber with over 100,000 subscribers, contends that her video compilation of Black artists, authors, and music where she asked for viewers to watch ads to raise funds, was similarly taken down by the platform after two days for violating YouTube’s fundraising policies. When she tried to appeal the video, YouTube sent her an email back saying the appeal had been denied.
“I’m contemplating making a new video about Black Lives Matter, but YouTube gave me a warning and I don’t want my channel to get taken away,” Duggan says. “YouTube is definitely my biggest platform, but right now I’m trying to figure out where else I can be useful, and I’m thinking maybe I’ll use my other platforms to spread information and links for my followers.”
Duggan is referring to YouTube’s three strike policy, which states that if a creator violates YouTube’s community guidelines three times within the same 90 days, their channel will be permanently removed from the site. Duggan says that though she was only issued a warning after posting her Black Lives Matter video, YouTube made it clear that another violation would result in a strike. This can be daunting considering some find YouTube’s community guidelines to be a little vague; for example, the guidelines state that “mention of violent events” is prohibited, but then clarifies that the platform “may age-restrict this type of content if it's documentary or educational.” This presumably leaves it up to YouTube to decide whether a creator’s mention of police brutality, for example, is “educational” enough to be left on the site, or “violent” enough to be given a warning.
Some also find that YouTube distributes strikes and warnings unevenly amongst creators; Lindseyrem, for example, a YouTuber with over 300,000 followers, posted on Twitter that her video talking about white privilege and how to support Black Lives Matter was taken down twice. Unlike other creators who encouraged their viewers to watch advertisements to support the movement, Lindseyrem clarified that she uploaded her video without advertisements, which calls into question why YouTube would remove the video from the site. Though Lindseyrem was able to re-upload the video on June 15, this still calls into question YouTube’s motive for removing her content, as it was clearly not in violation of any fundraising guidelines.
Some viewers have suggested that YouTube’s decision to remove so many Black Lives Matter videos was an attempt to silence creators from speaking out about racial injustice. “We realize some of you kicked off these efforts without a clear understanding of the policies,” YouTube said in a statement on June 9. “YouTube will be donating to racial justice initiatives to acknowledge the efforts over the past week.”
Not all creators feel this way. “It didn’t feel like YouTube was trying to silence me on the issue,” Duggan says. “It felt more like business than anything. I get it, they are a business and they run off advertisers, but they could have been more straight up about that rather than trying to place blame on me or my viewership.”
“Overall I think that YouTube just has some work to do with their reviewing system in general,” Hughes says. “I’ve been demonetized countless times for countless different reasons, but I've never had a video entirely removed from the platform. It honestly just felt like an odd time for them to do that with so many different people, especially when I think the videos were doing a lot of good.”
