What is the new YouTube profanity policy? Creators to be given freedom to use profanity without risking demonetization

YouTube has updated its profanity monetization policy, allowing content creators to be able to use strong profanity at the beginning of their videos without the risk of these uploads getting demonetized. Previously, using profanity in the first seven seconds of the video would result in it becoming ineligible for full monetization. Subsequently, earnings from the video would be limited considerably.

Now, strong profanity can be utilized within the first seven seconds without the creators having to worry about their earnings from the video being restricted. YouTube announced the change in a post made on X on July 29, 2025, writing:

"Creators: starting today, we're updating our profanity monetization policy to better align w/ updated standards in advertising & to address your feedback. Strong profanity in the first 7 sec is now eligible to earn full ad revenue."

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YouTube's new Profanity Policy Update explained

In a video uploaded to YouTube's Creator Insider channel, Conor, the platform's Head of Monetization Policy Experience, talked about the new changes being made to its Profanity policy.

In the video, titled New Profanity Updates Explained - YouTube Advertiser Friendly Guidelines, Conor explained the reasons for the previous policy and the reasons for the new changes:

"So, previously uploads with strong profanity in the first 7 seconds would not be eligible for full monetization and would have gotten the yellow dollar icon... So, some background, we introduced this guideline to align with broadcast standards. Advertisers expected ads on YouTube to have distance between profanity and the ad that just served. Those expectations have changed and advertisers already have the ability to target content to their desired level of profanity. But it was hearing your thoughts on our policies that ensured we could make this change a priority."

Furthermore, Conor explained that moderate profanity would include words like "a**hole" or "b**ch," whereas strong profanity would include terms like "f**k." However, he clarified that using moderate or strong profanity in titles or thumbnails would still result in monetization being limited.

Furthermore, using strong profanity in high frequency would also be considered a violation of their advertiser-friendly content guidelines, and remind creators that profanity must be used with community guidelines in mind:

"Using strong profanity with high frequency, think about a compilation video of the best swearing from a character in a show where it's used in most sentences in the upload. That high frequency usage remains a violation of the advertiser-friendly content guidelines. Lastly, this is not a free license to use swear words in any context and our community guidelines still apply to all content."

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Edited by Sijo Samuel Paul