YouTube Ad Boycott: Ads Won't Be On Channels With Less Than 10,000 Views

YouTube announced Thursday it will no longer place ads on channels with less than 10,000 lifetime views.

“This new threshold gives us enough information to determine the validity of a channel,” YouTube said. “It also allows us to confirm if a channel is following our community guidelines and advertiser policies. By keeping the threshold to 10k views, we also ensure that there will be minimal impact on our aspiring creators.”

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YouTube also confirmed it would institute a review policy to work alongside its 10,000-view rule for channels. Channels who apply to have ads run on their videos will now have their content actively reviewed by YouTube. Users whose content isn’t in violation of YouTube’s terms of service will then be allowed into YouTube’s Partner Program and have ads served to their videos.

The move comes as YouTube works to tamp down on the controversy over ads from high-profile partners being shown on YouTube videos with objectionable content. In late March, companies including Wal-Mart, McDonald's and Pepsi pulled their ads from YouTube after they appeared on videos that included content like racist language and hate speech.

Advertising and pre-roll videos have been a central part of YouTube’s growth as a company and among its users, as high-profile channel owners have been able to pull full-time income from YouTube ads. In the past, much of YouTube’s ad placement was also automated and done algorithmically, making Google’s more hands-on approach a change in direction.

Read: Google Changes Search To Detect, Flag Incorrect Content, Fake News

At the moment, the major ad pulls aren’t a serious revenue hit for YouTube. The Associated Press reported analysts expect a drop of only around two percent in revenue for parent company Alphabet. However, the continuing controversy over the ad pulls is still a public black eye for YouTube and Google and the companies likely hope the new approval policy solves these issues.