YouTube unleashed an influential generation of internet celebrities when it started to share ad revenue with video creators. For the past few years, code on YouTube’s website revealed which channels are part of the exclusive club which gets a cut of ad revenue. However, users and activists who had come to rely on that flag suddenly found themselves in the dark last month when YouTube removed the code. This shut off the ability of creators to keep tabs on their competitors—and of journalists and researchers to hold the world’s largest video streaming service accountable for who it allows into what’s known as the YouTube Partner Program, or YPP. Its demise hasn’t been previously reported.
Being part of YPP can be a validation of creators’ talents, but the uncertainty left by the code’s removal could let both new joiners and kicked-out creators escape attention. In September, YouTube announced that UK comedian Russell Brand had been suspended from YPP after several women accused him of rape and sexual assault. Now, it’s more difficult to track a channel’s status.
Maen Hammad says he and his colleagues at the US corporate responsibility advocacy group Ekō used the code on YouTube channels and tools empowered by it to carry out their investigations. The nonprofit previously used the flag to report on anti-LGBTQ content receiving revenue from YouTube. “I would have to believe that YouTube took out the source code after many civil society groups were using them to corroborate that YouTube was monetizing some of the worst disinformation on the internet,” Hammad says.
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