Certain types of misleading or deceptive content with serious risk of egregious harm are not allowed on YouTube. This includes certain types of misinformation that can cause real-world harm, certain types of technically manipulated content, or content interfering with democratic processes.
If you find content that violates this policy, report it. Instructions for reporting violations of our Community Guidelines are available here. If you've found multiple videos or comments that you would like to report, you can report the channel.
What these policies mean for you
If you're posting content
Don’t post content on YouTube if it fits any of the descriptions below.
- Suppression of census participation: Content aiming to mislead census participants about the time, place, means, or eligibility requirements of the census, or false claims that could materially discourage census participation.
- Manipulated content: Content that has been technically manipulated or doctored in a way that misleads users (usually beyond clips taken out of context) and may pose a serious risk of egregious harm.
- Misattributed content: Content that may pose a serious risk of egregious harm by falsely claiming that old footage from a past event is from a current event.
Examples
Here are some examples of content that’s not allowed on YouTube.
Suppression of census participation- Giving incorrect instructions on how to participate in the census.
- Discouraging participation in the census by falsely claiming that a respondent’s immigration status will be reported to law enforcement.
- Inaccurately translated video subtitles that inflame geopolitical tensions creating serious risk of egregious harm.
- Videos that have been technically manipulated (usually beyond clips taken out of context) to make it appear that a government official is dead.
- Video content that has been technically manipulated (usually beyond clips taken out of context) to fabricate events where there’s a serious risk of egregious harm.
- Content inaccurately presented as documenting human rights abuses in a specific location that is actually content from another location or event.
- Content showing a military crackdown on protesters with false claims that the content is from a current event, when the footage is actually several years old.
Remember these are just some examples, and don't post content if you think it might violate these policies. Please note these policies also apply to external links in your content. This can include clickable URLs, verbally directing users to other sites in video, as well as other forms.
Educational, documentary, scientific, or artistic content
We may allow content that violates the misinformation policies noted on this page if that content includes additional context in the video, audio, title, or description. This is not a pass to promote misinformation. We may make exceptions if the purpose of the content is to condemn, dispute, or satirize misinformation that violates our policies.
We also allow personal expressions of opinion on the above topics as long as they don’t otherwise violate any of the policies outlined above.
What happens if content violates this policy
If your content violates this policy, we’ll remove the content and send you an email to let you know. If we can’t verify that a link you post is safe, we may remove the link.
If this is your first time violating our Community Guidelines, you’ll likely get a warning with no penalty to your channel. You will have the option to take a policy training to allow the warning to expire after 90 days. The 90 day period starts from when the training is completed, not when the warning is issued. However, if the same policy is violated within that 90 day window, the warning may not expire and your channel may be given a strike. If you violate a different policy after completing the training, you will get another warning.
If you get 3 strikes within 90 days, your channel may be terminated. You can learn more about our strikes system here.
We may terminate your channel or account for repeated violations of the Community Guidelines or Terms of Service. We may also terminate your channel or account after a single case of severe abuse, or when the channel is dedicated to a policy violation. You can learn more about channel or account terminations here.