We remind that the company changed its advertiser-friendly content rules late last year, saying that if a video contains profanity within the first 15 seconds, it can be demonetized — meaning the platform won't will show advertising on it, which significantly limits the author's ability to receive income. The author could also be fined if they used a lot of profanity throughout the video (how much was not clear). Videos made according to the old rules, which clearly allowed swearing, suddenly stopped being attractive to advertisers.
There is certainly still some ambiguity here. The authors note that it's not clear what YouTube means when it says they can't use profanity in "majority of the video." However, it may help that YouTube no longer treats all profanity the same. The November update practically leveled the hierarchy: calling someone an "ass" was just as bad as calling someone a "motherfucker." Now such words are considered "moderate" profanity.
The company also clarifies that swearing in background music, soundtracks, intro or outro music will not result in demonetization.
The changes went into effect on March 7th, and until March 10th, YouTube will review videos that received limited ads due to the November update. Videos that have been fully demonetized will also be reviewed, according to Michael Aciman, a Google spokesperson.
In their video on Creator Insider, YouTube explains, why did it retroactively apply the November changes, changing the monetization status of videos that were fine under the previous rules. The essence of the change is that the content continues to receive new ads - if you click on a video from the author's backlog, you will still be shown ads from current campaigns.
YouTube also responded to complaints from some creators that the company did not adequately communicate the changes in November. Now it says it will be announcing changes to Creator Studio, where YouTubers upload and edit videos, as well as view analytics and other data.