“Video unavailable.”
It’s always a bummer when you click through a YouTube link and see that message. Sometimes this means the video has been deleted. Other times it means the user changed the video’s settings to make it private.
However, over the past few weeks, YouTube viewers have noticed a new “video unavailable” message:
“This video is popular!” reads the warning, blocking viewers from watching the YouTube video. “Due to limited creator history, we’re limiting the number of viewers. Subscribe to this channel to help this creator reach a broader audience.”
Word quickly spread on social media about the warning. A Reddit post from Feb. 2, on the topic received more than 50,000 upvotes. Conspiracy theories disseminated on Twitter, with users believing that YouTube implemented this new policy specifically to stifle livestreams from the far right, anti-vaccine mandate rallies that have been happening in Canada.
However the “limited creator history” is not a direct response to current events.
According to YouTube, the company officially instituted a new policy in September 2021 regarding mobile live streaming. Prior to the change, a user could not stream to their YouTube channel via mobile device unless they had at least 1,000 subscribers. The change to that policy allowed anyone with a YouTube channel to livestream via their mobile device with some “guardrails” in place.
One of those guardrails is to limit viewers on mobile livestreams hosted on small channels in order to prevent abuse and limit those who seek to quickly spread harmful content. The policy is broad and effects the whole platform, meaning, even if a particular stream isn’t abusive or spreading harmful content, this message will appear if they have less than 1,000 subs.
“We’re always exploring new ways to let creators use more features while keeping our community safe,” a YouTube spokesperson said in an email conversation with Mashable. “To help smaller, aspiring creators, while preventing abuse of mobile live streaming, we’ve created safeguards to limit the spread of potentially harmful content. If a channel has less than one thousand subscribers, we limit the number of viewers on mobile live streams.”
Mashable found the earliest Twitter mention of the “limited creator history” warning dating back to more than a month ago, on Jan. 8, 2022. A Twitter user attempting to watch a dog sledding livestream being broadcast by a channel with less than 300 subscribers reported receiving the message.
The first report of seeing this warning on Twitter happened a full two weeks before the trucker convoy began. And limiting views on dog sledding stream is not exactly stifling political dissent, thought it does seem annoying if you’re an Iditarod fan.
But YouTube has long required users to build their channels and develop a repertoire on the platform before being able to access certain features. From the company’s standpoint, this minimizes abuses on the platform.
The policy also likely aids their community guidelines policies by preventing ban evasions from suspended users starting new accounts. If a YouTube received a strike and couldn’t stream on their channel, what would stop them from just livestreaming on a new channel they just setup? This policy.
And it’s also likely that another important aspect of the policy from the company’s standpoint is that it prevents fly-by-night channels from illegally streaming copyrighted content, like the Olympics or a new movie.
However, the warning message itself is rather vague. It doesn’t tell you quite how long a user will be prevented from watching the video. A user can also take the message to mean that if they subscribe to the channel, they can then immediately proceed to watch the video. (They can’t.) YouTube seems to be aware of the issue.
“We apply these safeguards to all channels who stream from mobile & have less than 1K subs,” said a YouTube spokesperson. “We understand that the in-product messaging might be confusing, which is why we’re working to update it.”
译文：
“视频不可用。”
当你点击YouTube链接并看到这条消息时，你总是很沮丧。有时这意味着视频已被删除。其他时候，这意味着用户更改了视频的设置，使其成为私人视频。然而，在过去几周里，YouTube观众注意到一条新的“视频不可用”信息：
“这段视频很受欢迎！”警告写道，阻止观众观看YouTube视频由于创作者历史有限，我们限制了观众数量。订阅此频道，帮助这位创作者接触到更广泛的受众。”
有关警告的消息很快在社交媒体上传播开来。2月2日发布的一篇关于这个话题的Reddit帖子获得了超过5万张选票。阴谋论在Twitter上传播，用户认为YouTube实施了这项新政策，专门扼杀加拿大发生的极右翼反疫苗强制***的直播。
然而，“有限的创造者历史”并不是对当前事件的直接反应。
根据YouTube，该公司在2021年9月正式提出了一项关于手机直播的新政策。在这项改变之前，除非用户至少有1000名订户，否则用户无法通过移动设备传输到YouTube频道。该政策的改变允许任何拥有YouTube频道的人通过移动设备进行直播，并设置了一些“护栏”。
其中一个防护措施是限制小型频道上的移动直播流的观众，以防止滥用，并限制那些试图快速传播有害内容的人。该政策涉及面很广，会影响整个平台，这意味着，即使某个特定流没有滥用或传播有害内容，如果其子流少于1000，也会出现此消息。
YouTube的一位发言人在与Mashable的电子邮件对话中说：“我们一直在探索新方法，让创作者在保持社区安全的同时使用更多功能。”。“为了帮助有抱负的小型创作者，同时防止滥用移动直播，我们建立了保护措施，以限制潜在有害内容的传播。如果一个频道的订户少于1000人，我们将限制移动直播的观众数量。”
Mashable发现Twitter上最早提到的“有限创造者历史”警告可以追溯到一个多月前，即2022年1月8日。一名Twitter用户试图观看一条狗拉雪橇的直播流，该直播流由一个不到300名订户的频道广播，据报道收到了该消息。
在Twitter上看到这一警告的第一份报告发生在卡车车队开始之前整整两周。限制对狗拉雪橇流的看法并不完全是扼杀政治异见，但如果你是伊迪塔罗德的粉丝，这看起来确实很烦人。
但YouTube长期以来一直要求用户在能够访问某些功能之前，在该平台上建立自己的频道并开发曲目。从公司的角度来看，这将最大限度地减少平台上的滥用。
该政策还可能有助于他们的社区指导方针政策，防止暂停使用新帐户的用户逃避禁令。如果YouTube遭到攻击，无法在他们的频道上进行直播，那么有什么能阻止他们在刚刚设置的新频道上进行直播呢？这项政策。
从该公司的角度来看，该政策的另一个重要方面很可能是，它防止夜间飞行频道非法播放受版权保护的内容，如奥运会或一部新电影。
然而，警告信息本身相当模糊。它并不能告诉你用户被阻止观看视频的时间。用户还可以将该消息理解为，如果他们订阅了该频道，就可以立即观看视频。YouTube似乎意识到了这个问题。
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