YouTube will start letting the worst creators back on the platform

YouTube policy enforcement isn’t great, to put things mildly, and the platform has a reputation for often being unnecessarily difficult for creators, exposing them to spurious copyright claims and the like. But for all the ways YouTube struggles there, we’ve had to give Google credit for the steps it’s taken to silence some of the worst people you’ll find both on- and offline, spreading politically motivated lies and doing real harm through their messaging. And now, in all its wisdom, it’s letting them back.

After indicating last month that it planned to start reinstating many banned accounts, today YouTube goes official with its offer for second chances.

In its announcement, the company is frustratingly vague about exactly who it’s trying to give those second chances to, and what past transgressions might be deserving of an appeal. But given the climate in which this news is emerging, it’s difficult to read this as anything other than an about-face on policies related to COVID-19 and 2020 election lies. What is clear is that copyright violators are not getting a second chance — that would just be going too far.

Google has joined other tech giants on the receiving end of some well-deserved criticism lately, with behavior seen as kowtowing to the current US administration, if not resorting to outright bribery — late last month, YouTube agreed to pay the president $24.5 million for terminating his own YouTube account (via PBS).

Users with banned accounts that are eligible for this reconsideration will start seeing a new-channel request option appear in YouTube Studio at some point over the next few weeks. There’s no word yet on how many tens of millions of dollars YouTube plans to pay any of them, but we wouldn’t hold our breath.

All we know is that this doesn’t sound like a bunch of put-upon creators finding redemption, so much as a platform abandoning its principles.