Since an article posted by the The Times, in February 2017, about YouTube running ads against content that promotes hate speech and terrorism activities, which lead to many of the biggest brands to remove their ads from the platform, YouTube revenue has decreased. Some of the top creators have spoken on how this has affected them and some even talk about numbers.

YouTube celebrities such as PewDiePie, Philip DeFranco and h3h3productions were particularly vocal about their loss of revenue. DeFranco reported that he saw a drop in 80% in revenue, although, for him, revenue increased again, but still showing a 30% to 40% drop in revenue. 

According to a YouTube Community Manager, "Advertisers are noticing the improvements we've made and, as a result, our conversations with them are more positive", so in time we should see advertisers coming back to the platform. PewDiePie said in a Tweet that he felt a lot better about the ad situation after speaking to YouTube. To read more about what the creators are saying about this, click here.

Following the news, more recently, YouTube has been updating several policies, making changes to their algorithm, and also in the YouTube Partner Program (YPP), encouraging creators to make sure their videos are in line with the advertiser friendly content guidelines. Due to these updates, we recommend that you read all the other YouTube policies and the Terms of Service.

YouTube also introduced changes in the YouTube Partner Program, adding new requirements. Channels now need to have at least 10,000 lifetime views, and be reviewed by YouTube before they are eligible to run ads in their videos. To read more about this, click here.