YouTube announced on Thursday that creators whose channels were previously terminated will be able to request new accounts.
“We know many terminated creators deserve a second chance – YouTube has evolved and changed over the past 20 years, and we’ve had our share of second chances to get things right with our community too,” YouTube wrote in the blog post.
This change in policy, which YouTube is calling a “pilot,” didn’t come out of nowhere. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) had subpoenaed YouTube’s parent company, Alphabet, to investigate if the Biden-Harris administration had “coerced or colluded” platforms into censoring speech. Last month, Alphabet’s legal counsel, Daniel F. Donovan, wrote in a letter to Rep. Jordan that the company would allow some terminated creators to come back.
While YouTube does not explicitly reference its COVID-19 or election integrity policies in its blog post, Alphabet’s letter makes it clear that these policies are top of mind.
“Reflecting the Company’s commitment to free expression, YouTube will provide an opportunity for all creators to rejoin the platform if the Company terminated their channels for repeated violations of COVID-19 and elections integrity policies that are no longer in effect,” Alphabet’s letter says. “YouTube values conservative voices on its platform and recognizes that these creators have extensive reach and play an important role in civic discourse.”
At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter took action to prevent the spread of medical misinformation about the virus vaccines.
At the time, YouTube disallowed content stating that vaccines can cause cancer, a false claim that is not supported by scientific research. The following year, these platforms also took action against accounts that they believed to incite violence after the January 6 riots, including the account of President Donald Trump.
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These policies have since been discontinued, but creators who were terminated under those rules have remained unable to upload YouTube videos.
TechCrunch asked YouTube if this pilot would specifically focus on creators who were terminated on the grounds of the COVID-19 and election integrity policies. We did not receive a response prior to publication.
“We’ll consider several factors when evaluating requests for new channels, like whether the creator committed particularly severe or persistent violations of our Community Guidelines or Terms of Service, or whether the creator’s on- or off-platform activity harmed or may continue to harm the YouTube community, like channels that endanger kids’ safety,” the company wrote in its blog.
YouTube also stated that creators who were terminated for copyright infringement will not be allowed to request a new channel.
Creators must wait one year after their channel was terminated before they are eligible to apply for a new channel; however, they can still appeal their termination during that year’s lag if they think that YouTube’s decision was unjust.
If a creator is reinstated, they will start from scratch, rather than regain access to their old account. However, they can still apply to the YouTube Partner Program once they are eligible to do so, which allows them to share ad revenue with YouTube.
