Content creators on YouTube may lose subscribers as the video app company is closing spam accounts.
Part of the sweep occurred on Thursday. The next phase will occur on Friday according to an official post on YouTube’s product forum.
It stated that these sweeps are part of routine maintenance the company performs.
Users would subsequently notice a decrease in their number of subscribers.
Owners of affected channels will see a banner in YouTube Studio or Classic Creator Studio.
Ridding the platform of spam accounts aids in keeping YouTube “a fair playing field” for creators, since they can artificially increase a channel’s subscriber count.
The number of channels to be potentially affected is not known but YouTube wants users to be aware and prepare for a decrease in the numbers.
“We regularly verify the legitimacy of accounts and actions on your YouTube channel.
“As part of these regular checks, we identified and will remove a number of subscribers that were in fact spam from our systems,” the post read.
Major channels like PewDiePie and T-Series may notice a decrease, affecting their ongoing competition, but smaller creators face the biggest risk, since they could lose their ability to monetize videos.
“Channels that had a high percentage of spam and fall below 1,000 subscribers will no longer meet the minimum requirement for YPP [YouTube Partner Program] and will be removed from the program.
“They are encouraged to reapply once they’ve rebuilt their subscribers organically,” the post read.
