If you’re a YouTube creator who also works on content for Twitch, you’ll want to be very careful going forward. It seems YouTube is terminating the accounts of particular creators who have uploaded videos teasing upcoming Twitch streams, after offering no prior warnings or communication on the situation.
Three YouTubers, including Linus Tech Tips, Surny, and Aztrosizt are just three YouTubers who tweeted about the happenings recently. Linus Tech Tips stated that he received a “strike” for posting a video advising subscribers that one of his shows was a live on Twitch.
This isn’t a new rule, and apparently has existed on YouTube for some time, but it appears that its just not being enforced.
YouTube community guidelines do, in fact, state the following:
“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.”
Surny’s entire channel was terminated, and while he states he understands that his actions were against the community rules, he still feels that the actions taken against him were unnecessary.
According to YouTube, the punishments aren’t being handed out for no reason. The company tweeted that you can absolutely “create videos that promote or link to Twitch.” The company followed up with “However, as stated in our Community Guidelines, if the main/sole purpose of the content is to drive people off YouTube and onto another site, it will likely violate our spam policies. Example could be no audio/video/other info, just a link to another site.”
It’s not clear at this point what the actual deal is when it comes to these deletions and strikes, but YouTube hasn’t commented directly on the creators’ claims as of yet.
Source: Shacknews YouTube Creators Are Losing Their Accounts For Promoting Their Twitch Streams