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YouTube\u2019s gaming community pushed back<\/a> against the company this week after some creators saw their old videos demonetized out of the blue.<\/p>\n The culprit is a new policy that the company introduced back in November<\/a> in order to make certain kinds of content more advertiser friendly. That change, made to YouTubes\u2019s advertiser-friendly content guidelines, overhauled the platform\u2019s approach to profanity and violence.<\/p>\n The good news is that while we don\u2019t quite know what the company will do yet, YouTube is apparently\u00a0listening to creators\u2019 concerns.<\/p>\n \u201cIn recent weeks we\u2019ve heard from many creators regarding this update,\u201d YouTube spokesperson Michael Aciman told TechCrunch. \u201cThat feedback is important to us and we are in the process of making some adjustments to this policy to address their concerns. We will follow up shortly with our creator community as soon as we have more to share.\u201d<\/p>\n In November, YouTube expanded its definition of violence beyond real-world depictions, including in-game violent content \u201cdirected at a real named person or acts that are manufactured to create shocking experiences (such as brutal mass killing).\u201d The company said that gore in \u201cstandard game play\u201d was fine, but only after the first 8 seconds of a video. The whole section left plenty of room for interpretation, for better or worse.<\/p>\n The changes to its profanity policy were more drastic. YouTube announced that it would no longer count \u201chell\u201d and \u201cdamn\u201d as profane words, but all other profanity would be lumped together instead of differentiated based on severity (e.g. words like \u201cshit\u201d and \u201cfuck\u201d would now be treated the same way). Further, \u201cprofanity used in the title, thumbnails, or in the video\u2019s first 7 seconds or used consistently throughout the video may not receive ad revenue,\u201d according to the new policy.<\/p>\n If the swearing kicks in after the first 8 seconds of a video, it\u2019s still eligible, but some of the changes stood to affect a massive swath of videos \u2014many of which were made well before the changes were announced. Creators started noticing the new policies in effect around the end of December, watching some videos be slapped with new restrictions that limit their reach and ad eligibility.<\/p>\n YouTube creator Daniel Condren, who runs RTGame, explored the impact of the policy change<\/a> on his own channel in a video that racked up more than a million views this week. Condren has been grappling with the enforcement changes in recent weeks after seeing roughly a dozen videos demonetized and his request for appeals rejected.<\/p>\n