Back in August, YouTube released updated monetization icons to help creators better understand the status of their videos. The system uses machine learning to determine whether videos are eligible for full monetization (green icons), partial monetization (through YouTube Red, yellow icons), or none at all (a dollar sign with a slash). Creators were also given the ability to request a manual review of a video that was deemed ineligible for monetization.
Through the human review process of these appeals, YouTube has been able to refine their algorithms to better distinguish ad-safe content from content that isn’t suitable for ads.
“Since August, over a million human reviews have helped train and improve this technology and today, we’re releasing an important update that will result in fewer misclassifications overall,” a YouTube spokesperson wrote earlier today. “As a result, there will be a 30 percent reduction in the number of videos receiving limited ads as they move to being fully monetized. In other words, millions more videos will become fully monetized.”
The update is currently in the process of being rolled out, and should be complete by 2:30am PDT on Friday morning. Creators may see a change in their videos’ monetization during this time; previously green icons may turn yellow, and previously yellow icons may turn green. The status of videos that were already appealed and manually reviewed will not change.
“This updated system is an improvement, but it’s not perfect,” YouTube wrote. “We know there’s much more work to do, so if you feel the yellow icon is a mistake, please continue to appeal.”