YouTube will try to prevent the next Logan Paul fiasco by cutting off the cash

YouTube sees one central element to its problems: money.

On Tuesday the company announced changes to how videos on the platform make money, adding in a heavy dose of human moderation and new tools to make sure advertising cash gets put toward the right kinds of videos — and never hate speech, child exploitation, and other questionable content.

Yes, that would conceivably include videos like the one Logan Paul recently uploaded featuring the body of a person who had recently committed suicide.

YouTube "will be strengthening our requirements for monetization so spammers, impersonators, and other bad actors can’t hurt our ecosystem or take advantage of you, while continuing to reward those who make our platform great," wrote Neal Mohan, Chief Product Officer, and Robert Kyncl, Chief Business Officer, in a blog post.

The changes come after months of YouTube weathering advertiser unrest and public criticism for the videos it hosts — and the ads it plays against them. The company has shown ads for major brands next to videos depicting hate speech. It's also hosted disturbing cartoons in its YouTube Kids section, and allowed Logan Paul's troubling video to show ads and reach its "Trending" section.

The changes primarily address smaller channels. YouTube is making it tougher for creators to become part of its partner program, which allows videos to be monetized. A channel will now need to have accrued 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of watch time over the past 12 months to gain access to the program. Otherwise, their videos won't be eligible to make money.

YouTube stressed that the vast majority of channels that will be cut out by this change didn't make much money, with 99 percent earning less than $100 last year.

"After thoughtful consideration, we believe these are necessary compromises to protect our community," Mohan and Kyncl wrote.

There are also changes for big creators. Human moderators will look at every single video that is part of its Google Preferred program, i.e., the high-end video ad units that it offers up to brands.

Under this system, Paul's video would have been reviewed by a human moderator, who would have conceivably flagged it as not being eligible for Google Preferred ads due to its disturbing content.

This theoretically removes the monetary incentive for creators to constantly push the envelope with extreme video, while also giving marketers more assurances that their ads won't run against dark or disturbing content.

Aside from cutting off the money, YouTube has yet to announce any efforts to better regulate the content itself, but added that it will be talking to creators to figure out a way forward.

Mohan and Kyncl seemed to allude to the Paul situation in their blog post.

"While this change will tackle the potential abuse of a large but disparate group of smaller channels, we also know that the bad action of a single, large channel can also have an impact on the community and how advertisers view YouTube. We'll be working to schedule conversations with our creators in the months ahead so we can hear your thoughts and ideas and what more we can do to tackle that challenge," they wrote.