Legal Policies
Protecting your privacy
If someone has posted your personal information or uploaded a video of you without your consent, start by contacting the uploader and asking them to remove the content.
If you can’t reach an agreement with the uploader, or if you are uncomfortable contacting them, you can request removal of content based on our Privacy Guidelines.
For content to be considered for removal, an individual must be uniquely identifiable. When assessing if an individual is uniquely identifiable, we consider the following factors:
- Your image or voice
- Full name
- Financial information
- Contact information
- Other personally identifiable information
When you report a privacy complaint, we consider public interest, newsworthiness, and consent as factors in our final decision. Check out our Privacy Guidelines for a more detailed explanation of our privacy complaint process and the factors we take into account when evaluating privacy claims.
Tips on how to protect your privacy on YouTube:
- Think carefully before you post personal information. This includes things like the town you live in, where you go to school, or your home address.
- Protect your account data and don’t share your password with others. YouTube employees will never ask you for your password. Don’t be fooled if someone contacts you pretending to be from YouTube.
- Get permission first. As a rule of thumb, you should get permission before filming other people or posting their personal information.
- Visit our Privacy and Safety Settings page for a list of tools that you can use to manage your content and experience on the site.
Harassment and cyberbullying
We want you to use YouTube without fear of being subjected to malicious harassment. In cases where harassment crosses the line into a malicious attack it can be reported and will be removed. In other cases, users may be mildly annoying or petty and should simply be ignored.
Harassment may include :
- Abusive videos, comments, messages
- Revealing someone’s personal information
- Maliciously recording someone without their consent
- Deliberately posting content in order to humiliate someone
- Making hurtful and negative comments/videos about another person
- Unwanted sexualization, which encompasses sexual harassment or sexual bullying in any form
Tips and advice :
- Pause before you post: Think seriously about how you may be perceived online and do not post anything that may compromise your reputation or safety.
- Speak up: Tell friends to stop cyberbullying and voice your opinion against cyberbullying when you see it on the site.
- Tell an adult if you remain concerned about another’s actions towards you online.
- Try deleting comments and blocking the user if another user is bothering you, so they can’t view your videos or leave more comments. You can also turn comments off for any video or manage comments by requiring pre-approval before they get posted.
- Respect people’s opinions online but know when it crosses the line. We want YouTube to be a dynamic and expressive platform but we do not want users to feel intimidated or threatened.
- Report harassing users and content via YouTube’s reporting tool.
To learn about tools available to you to help you manage your experience on the site, especially abusive users, please visit our Privacy and safety settings page.
Sometimes criticism and insults can escalate into more serious forms of harassment and cyberbullying. If specific threats are made against you and you feel unsafe, tell a trusted adult and report it to your local law enforcement agency.
Hate speech
We encourage free speech and try to defend your right to express unpopular points of view, but we don’t permit hate speech.
Hate speech refers to content that promotes violence or hatred against individuals or groups based on certain attributes, such as:
- race or ethnic origin
- religion
- disability
- gender
- age
- veteran status
- sexual orientation/gender identity
There is a fine line between what is and what is not considered to be hate speech. For instance, it is generally okay to criticize a nation-state, but not okay to post malicious hateful comments about a group of people solely based on their race.
Reporting hateful content
Keep in mind that not everything that’s mean or insulting is hate speech. If you’re upset by content that a specific person is posting, you may wish to consider blocking the user.
However, if you feel that content violates our hate speech policy, report it to YouTube for review in one of the following ways:
- Flag the video : You may report hateful content by flagging the video.
- File an abuse report : If you have found multiple videos, comments, or a user’s entire account that you wish to report, please visit our reporting tool, where you will be able to submit a more detailed report.
Impersonation
Activities such as copying a user’s channel layout, using a similar username, or posing as another person in comments, emails, or videos may be considered harassment. In cases where our team determines that an account was established to impersonate another channel or individual, the account will be removed.
There are two ways that impersonation can happen on YouTube:
-
Impersonation of a channel :
A user copies a channel’s profile, background, or text, and writes comments to make it look like somebody else’s channel posted the comments. If you feel that your channel is being impersonated, please visit our reporting tool.
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Impersonation of an individual :
A user creates a channel or video using another individual’s real name, image, or other personal information to deceive people into thinking they are someone else on YouTube. If you feel that you are being impersonated, report it using our webform.
What doesn’t count as impersonation
Impersonation does not include channels or videos pretending to represent a business. In this case you may want to consider submitting a legal complaint via our legal reporting forms.
Threats
The YouTube community is important to us and we want to see it continue to flourish. To ensure that this is possible, content that makes threats of serious physical harm against a specific individual or defined group of individuals will be removed.
People who threaten others may receive a strike on their account and their account may be terminated.
Reporting a threat
Flag the video : You can report serious threats of violence by flagging the video.
File an abuse report : If you have found multiple videos, comments, or a user’s entire account that you wish to report, please visit our reporting tool, where you will be able to submit a more detailed complaint.
Child endangerment
YouTube has a zero-tolerance policy for sexual content involving minors. Uploading, commenting, or engaging in any type of activity that sexualizes minors will immediately result in an account suspension.
In cases where a video contains child sexual abuse imagery, our team will report it to NCMEC, who in turn works with global law enforcement agencies.
Reporting child endangerment
If you believe that a child is in imminent danger, you should reach out to your local law enforcement agency to report the situation.
Here are two ways that you can report child endangerment for YouTube to review:
- Flag the video : Report videos that contain sexually inappropriate content involving minors by flagging the video.
- File an abuse report : If you have found multiple videos, comments, or a user’s entire account that you wish to report, please visit our reporting tool, where you will be able to submit a more detailed complaint.
If we believe a child is in danger based on content that has been reported to us, we will assist with investigations into the content by law enforcement, when appropriate.
Nudity and sexual content
If a video is intended to be sexually provocative, it is less likely to be acceptable for YouTube.
What is and isn’t allowed
Sexually explicit content like pornography is not allowed. Videos containing fetish content will be removed or age-restricted depending on the severity of the act in question. In most cases, violent, graphic, or humiliating fetishes are not allowed to be shown on YouTube.
A video that contains nudity or other sexual content may be allowed if the primary purpose is educational, documentary, scientific, or artistic, and it isn’t gratuitously graphic. For example, a documentary on breast cancer would be appropriate, but posting clips out of context from the same documentary might not be. Remember that providing context in the title and description will help us and your viewers determine the primary purpose of the video.
Age-restricted content
In cases where videos do not cross the line, but still contain sexual content, we may apply an age-restriction so that only viewers over a certain age can view the content.
Videos containing nudity or dramatized sexual conduct may be age-restricted when the context is appropriately educational, documentary, scientific or artistic. Videos featuring individuals in minimal or revealing clothing may also be age-restricted if they’re intended to be sexually provocative, but don’t show explicit content.
- Whether breasts, buttocks or genitals (clothed or unclothed) are the focal point of the video;
- Whether the video setting is sexually suggestive (e.g. a location generally associated with sexual activity, such as a bed);
- Whether the subject is depicted in a pose that is intended to sexually arouse the viewer;
- Whether the language used in the video is vulgar and/or lewd;
- Whether the subject’s actions in the video suggest a willingness to engage in sexual activity (e.g. kissing, provocative dancing, fondling); and
- If a subject is minimally clothed, whether the clothing would be acceptable in appropriate public contexts (e.g. swimwear vs. lingerie).
- Other factors include:
- The length of time an image appears in the video
- Fleeting vs. prolonged exposure especially relative to the overall length of the video.
- The camera angle and focus
- The relative clarity of the images in the video
- The video thumbnail, please refer to our Misleading Thumbnail policy
- The length of time an image appears in the video
If you wish to avoid discovering age-restricted content, consider enabling YouTube’s Restricted Mode.
Reporting nudity and sexual content:
Flag the video: You may report videos that you believe violate this policy, or may not be appropriate for all ages by flagging the video.
Violent or graphic content
Real depictions of graphic or violent content:
Increasingly, YouTube is becoming an outlet for citizen journalists, documentarians and other users to publish accounts of what is happening in their daily lives. It is inevitable that some of these videos will contain content that is violent or graphic in nature.
If the violence shown in your video is particularly graphic, please make sure to post as much information as possible in the title and metadata to help viewers understand what they are seeing. Providing documentary or educational context can help the viewer, and our reviewers, understand why they may be seeing the disturbing content.
It’s not okay to post violent or gory content that’s primarily intended to be shocking, sensational or disrespectful. If a video is particularly graphic or disturbing, it should be balanced with additional context and information. For instance, a citizen journalist who captures footage of protesters being beaten and uploads it with relevant information (date, location, context, etc) would likely be allowed. However, posting the same footage without contextual or educational information may be considered gratuitous and may be removed from the site.
Dramatized depictions of graphic or violent content
Some people post videos that contain dramatized depictions of violence. Much like movies and TV, graphic or disturbing content that contains a certain level of violence or gore is not suitable for minors and will be age-restricted.
Age-restricted content
In some cases, real, dramatized or fake violence may not be suitable for all ages. Similar to movie or television ratings, our age-restrictions help viewers avoid watching content that they may not feel is acceptable for themselves or for their children.
- Whether the video shows scenes containing physical attacks where the injury sustained is bloody or gory.
- Whether the video shows the graphic aftermath of a violent act.
- Whether the shots of violence or gore are the focal point of the video.
- Whether the violence contained in the video is realistic when posted in a dramatic context.
- Other factors include:
- The length of time an image appears in the video
- Fleeting vs. prolonged exposure especially relative to the overall length of the video.
- The camera angle and focus
- The relative clarity of the images in the video
- The video thumbnail, please refer to our Misleading Thumbnail policy
- The length of time an image appears in the video
If you wish to avoid watching age-restricted content, please look into enabling Restricted Mode.
Reporting graphic or violent content
Flag the video: You may report videos that you believe violate this policy, or may not be appropriate for all ages, byflagging the video.
Harmful or dangerous content
While it might not seem fair to say you can’t show something because of what viewers might do in response, we draw the line at content that intends to incite violence or encourage dangerous or illegal activities that have an inherent risk of serious physical harm or death.
Videos that we consider to encourage dangerous or illegal activities include instructional bomb making, choking games, hard drug use, or other acts where serious injury may result. A video that depicts dangerous acts may be allowed if the primary purpose is educational, documentary, scientific, or artistic (EDSA), and it isn’t gratuitously graphic. For example, a news piece on the dangers of choking games would be appropriate, but posting clips out of context from the same documentary might not be.
Videos that incite others to commit acts of violence are strictly prohibited from YouTube. If your video asks others to commit an act of violence or threatens people with serious acts of violence, it will be removed from the site.
We are very sensitive to any harmful or dangerous content that involves minors. If your video shows a minor participating in a harmful or dangerous activity, do not post it. In the interest of protecting minors, we may age-restrict videos containing adults participating in activities that have a high risk of injury or death.
- Whether the act in question could lead to serious injury or death.
- Whether the individuals participating in the act are trained professionals taking all necessary precautions to prevent injury.
- Whether the act could be easily imitated by minors.
- Whether the content could be used to commit serious acts of violence.
- Whether the upload is educational, documentary, scientific or artistic in nature.
Reporting harmful or dangerous content
Flag the video: You may report videos that you believe violate this policy, or may not be appropriate for all ages by flagging the video.
Spam, deceptive practices, and scams
We are constantly working to keep YouTube free of spam, scams and other deceptive practices that attempt to take advantage of the YouTube community. Below you can learn in more detail what constitutes a violation of these policies.
Video and comment spam
It’s not okay to post large amounts of untargeted, unwanted, or repetitive content in videos, comments, private messages, or other places on the site. If the main purpose of your content is to drive people off of YouTube and onto another site, it will likely violate our spam policies.
Artificial traffic spam
Anything that artificially increases the number of views, likes, comments, or other metric either through the use of automatic systems or by serving up videos to unsuspecting viewers, is against our terms. Videos and accounts that are found to be in violation of our terms may be closed down and removed from YouTube. If you are going to hire someone to help promote your content, it should be someone you absolutely trust, as you may be putting the fate of your channel (and your business on YouTube) in their hands. If they are using methods that violate our terms of service, you may be the one to pay the bigger price, as it will be your videos and channel that get taken down. Check out this blog post and this articleif you want to learn more.
Misleading metadata
Metadata refers to any and all additional information provided on a video. This includes the title, description, tags, annotations, and thumbnail. The reason we have metadata is so that you can add additional contextual information to your videos. Please do not use these features to game or trick our search algorithms. All metadata should be representative of the content contained in your video. Among other things, metadata added in an attempt to game search algorithms will lead to the removal of your video and a strike against your account.
Please select a reasonable number of tags that most closely reflect your video content. Please also only add tags to the tag section of your metadata. Adding additional tags to the description of your video may constitute spam and can result in the removal of your video.
Misleading or racy thumbnails
Please select the thumbnail that best represents your content. Selecting a sexually provocative thumbnail may result in the removal of your thumbnail or the age-restriction of your video. The thumbnail is the title card that will be shown next to your video across the site and should be appropriate for all ages.
If you are uploading a a parody, review or vlog, please choose appropriately representative metadata that will not confuse users into believing that your video is something it is not. This is especially important to remember in relation to current events or viral videos. Please select a thumbnail and title that clearly illustrate that your video is commentary and not footage from an actual event. Videos that are deemed deceptive will be removed from the site and strikes may be issued to the uploader.
Scams
Some users create content which attempts to trick others for their own financial gain. Content that deliberately tries to mislead users for financial gain may be removed, and in some cases strikes may be issued to the uploader.
Please be wary of claims that seem too good to be true, as they likely are.
Reporting spam or deceptive content:
- Flag the video: You may report videos that contain spam or misleading content by flagging the video.
- Reporting comments: You may also report comments you believe are spam by clicking the “Flag for spam” feature.
Additional policies
Vulgar language
Some language is not appropriate for younger audiences. Use of sexually explicit language or excessive profanity in your video or associated metadata may lead to the age-restriction of your video.
Inactive accounts policy
In general, users are expected to be active members within the YouTube community. If an account is found to be overly inactive, the account may be reclaimed by YouTube without notice. Inactivity may be considered as:
- Not logging into the site for at least six months
- Never having uploaded video content
- Not actively partaking in watching or commenting on videos or channels
Encouraging Terms of Service violations
If you post content that encourages other users to violate our Terms of Service, the content may be removed, your account may be penalized, and in some cases your account may be terminated.
Age requirements on Google products
Please refer to the article Age requirements on Google Accounts to learn about the age requirements for YouTube.
Working with third party view service providers
Learn about YouTube views policy
View policy basics
YouTube defines a view as a viewer-initiated intended play of a YouTube video, that’s been despammed; views are seen via embeds, devices, watch pages, and leanback.A view isn’t an autoplay, scripted play, spammy play, or playback. Views should only be a result of pure viewer choice to watch a video, not as a result of a transaction through incentivized views.
Viewcount gaming is trying to make a non-view into a view.
There are services that increase views for a price
What is going on in the marketplace?
There are many companies who are building their business based on selling YouTube-related services. Some offer to help clients with strategy and services, some offer tools to manage channels and/or brand presence, and others promise to guarantee YouTube views.
What’s YouTube’s position?
The best way to grow the YouTube business is to encourage a healthy ecosystem of companies that support YouTube. YouTube supports companies that work within our ecosystem so long as they follow our Policies and Terms of Service.We can’t guarantee the validity of these services. TrueView is the only service that we can recommend and trust to provide real traffic.
What’s downright not allowed?
Purchasing views for your videos directly from third-party websites (e.g. paying $10 for 10,000 views).
Why not use these services?
- YouTube is an organic video site and the best way to naturally distribute your video content.
- In terms of distributing branded content YouTube TrueView solutions offer a robust and scalable way to distribute media.
- TrueView builds view counts that creators care about at an extremely cost effective rate, on a pure/native video platform.
- TrueView offers a brand safe, native video-viewing experience with myriad targeting capabilities with deep insight into our content and audience makeup.
If you’re going to use one of these services, find out how they promote your content and do your due diligence.
- Ask how they seed your videos
- Ask about transparency of data and analytics
- Ask about targeted demographics
- Ask if they use videos as incentivization or gating items
Remember that ultimately, you’re responsible for your video traffic. If you contract a company that gives you spam instead of views, you pay the price, not the company.
Missing YouTube Views
Keeping YouTube Views Authentic
YouTube isn’t just a place for videos, it’s a place for meaningful human interaction. Whether it’s views, likes, or comments, these interactions both represent and inform how creators connect with their audience. That’s why we take the accuracy of these interactions very seriously. When some bad actors try to game the system by artificially inflating view counts, they’re not just misleading fans about the popularity of a video, they’re undermining one of YouTube’s most important and unique qualities.
As part of our long-standing effort to keep YouTube authentic and full of meaningful interactions, we’ve begun to periodically audit the views a video has received. While in the past we would scan views for spam immediately after they occurred, starting today we will periodically validate the video’s view count, removing fraudulent views as new evidence comes to light. We don’t expect this approach to affect more than a minuscule fraction of videos on YouTube, but we believe it’s crucial to improving the accuracy of view counts and maintaining the trust of our fans and creators.
As YouTube creators, we ask you to be extra careful when working with third-party marketing firms; unfortunately some of them will sell you fake views. If you need help promoting your video, please review our posts about working with third party view service providers and increasing YouTube views.
Get legitimate subscribers
How YouTube keeps subscription counts accurate
Subscribing to a channel creates a relationship between a content creator and a content consumer; the creator keeps making great videos, and the consumer keeps watching, like-ing, and commenting. We take this relationship seriously.
What is a legitimate subscription?
A subscription is a user-initiated pledge of support to a YouTube channel; this means that a real human being wants this channel’s content in their feed every day.
The amount of users subscribed to a YouTube channel should be a metric that reflects genuine interest in that channel, not a gauge of automated or falsified activity.
You can learn more about subscriptions at this Help Center Page.
What strategies for gaining subscriptions aren’t allowed?
Services that attempt to boost YouTube subscriber numbers through automated means, or as a marketplace violate ourTerms of Service and are not ok. This could include the following:
- Purchasing subscribers from third-party websites
- sub4sub exchanges and services from third-party websites that subscribe you to multiple channels that then subscribe to you back
What does YouTube do about it?
We regularly verify accounts’ subscribers to channels, and penalize the accounts engaging in illegitimate activity.
Ultimately, if you’re going to contract someone to help promote your content, ask them how they are doing it and stay informed, as you may be putting the fate of your channel (and your business on YouTube) in their hands.
For more information on Multi Channel Network’s and YouTube how to videos please check back weekly or subscribe here.
