YouTube lets creators who violate guidelines take a class to avoid a strike

YouTube is offering creators a second chance if they violate the company's community guidelines. Creators who are given a warning about their content will be allowed to complete an educational training course so that they can "stay in good standing" on the site.

The Google-owned company explained the update in a blog post on Tuesday, saying the course is a variation on its existing strike system (breaking the rules once means a one-week freeze on uploads, two strikes is two weeks, three strikes your channel is terminated).

Now, creators who receive a violation notice will have the option to take a course on YouTube's policies before they're given a strike, with resources to help creators understand how their content didn't adhere to the community guidelines and what to do going forward.

After completing the course successfully, the warning on said creator's channel will be lifted, as long as the same policy isn't violated in a 90-day period — essentially if you don't do it again in three months, you're cleared. If the same policy is violated, however, the creator's video will be removed and a strike will be applied to their channel.

The YouTube training course. Credit: YouTube.

According to YouTube, which started handing out one-time warnings for policy violations in 2019, more than 80 percent of those creators have not violated policies since. The company says many of these violations are "unintentional", as the post reads: "We believe educational efforts are successful at reducing the number of creators who unintentionally violate our policies."

YouTube's community guidelines and content moderation policies aren't changing, but the new system comes as a significant update.