Did You Know? You're not allowed to talk about the past on YouTube.

Perhaps you remember my last blog post from a while back. It was about how strict and unfair Google Adsense is. Well, guess what: they've done it again.

I finally got my account reinstated after ten years of exile, and things have been going good. I run three YouTube channels: my author channel, a hobby enthusiast channel, and an outdoors/adventure channel. The most popular of the three is "Cheap Angler Fishing," my outdoors channel. I show people how to do what is ordinarily an expensive pass time on a small budget. It's usually fishing, but sometimes the weather won't permit you to be out on the water. On those days, I post a video about something other than fishing.

In an attempt to broaden my audience, I decided to start exploring the past, doing little bits about local history that I'm familiar with. The first two videos, happened to be about historic cemeteries. The first of which, was about an abandoned cemetery containing just three graves. I found it when I was about eleven or twelve years old, and have visited it a few times over the years. It's in the middle of the woods, on an abandoned hiking trail that hasn't been used in over thirty years. A friend and I decided to go back and look for it, unfortunately to no avail. We couldn't find it, but I posted the video to YouTube anyway.

About a week later, still inspired by our expedition, we decided to visit and pay respects to some historic figures who are eternally resting in the area. There's a large, still-operating cemetery nearby, that's been in service for well over 150 years. We decided to break this idea up into short segment videos, and only visited three famous graves in the first video.

While shooting this video, I checked my stats for the exploration video, only to find that the monetization had been disabled due to it violating Adsense's terms. It was ruled ineligible because of inappropriate content. I contacted YouTube's support, and was actually pleased that they had the issue resolved by the next day. I spent that next day editing the cemetery video, and posted it. After it went live, I checked back in on the exploration video, only to find out had been disabled once again.

This time, I went through and edited the title, description, and tags to eliminate any possible confusion, and contacted YouTube again. Apparently, the automated filter system kept flagging my video because it "sounded" like it might contain violent content.

The issue took longer to resolve this time, as I was forced to wait three days rather than one. I made sure to clarify and clean up the cemetery video just to make sure this didn't happen again. I thought, "This is actually an educational video that contains a few small local history lessons, there's no way anyone can be offended by it."

I was dead wrong (pun not intended). I checked my stats this morning to find that my video (my best, family friendliest, most educational, and most entertaining video to date) had the monetization disabled due to offensive content. Apparently history lessons are not "advertiser friendly."

I cuss like a sailor in my fishing and gaming videos, and post violent images about murder, crime, and horror in video games all the time. All of that is perfectly acceptable for Google to advertise on, but if you mention anything about dead people from history, or visiting a cemetery, you are a horrible person and don't deserve to be paid for your time and effort.

I see other channels visiting celebrity graves all the time, and they earn enough money to travel the world and produce more of the same subject. So either there must be some kind of loophole they found to get around it, or Google hates me.

And every time, I get the same response:
"Hello,

Thanks for your email. We didn’t approve your video(s) for monetization because the content in your video(s) or video details may not be advertiser-friendly.

I've escalated the issue to the appropriate team, who will investigate the issue and take the necessary actions based on their investigation results. If your video is approved for monetization, a green monetization icon will show up next to your video. Note that video review can take up to two business days.

Thanks for your patience and understanding.


Sincerely,
Andy
The YouTube Team"

Honestly, I hope Andy (and Emma, and everyone else on the YouTube team) only forwarded it to the appropriate team, instead of escalating it for investigation. That makes it sound like I'm in some kind of trouble, when I've done nothing wrong.

You be the judge, and tell me if my video is offensive and inappropriate for all audiences: https://youtu.be/sU31lCFvfcY

P.S. I'm really reluctant to post the link here, since I won't be credited with any income that it may potentially earn.