Here’s a simple way to think of it: if you were to combine all the playlists’ videos into one single video, and that video were to violate our Community Guidelines, then the playlist may violate Community Guidelines as well.
If you find content that violates this policy, please report it. Instructions for reporting violations of our Community Guidelines are available here. If you find many videos, comments, or a creator's entire channel that you wish to report, visit our reporting tool.
What this policy means for you
If you're creating playlists
Don’t post playlists on YouTube if they fit any of the descriptions noted below.
- Playlists with thumbnails, titles or descriptions that violate our community guidelines, such as those that are pornographic, or that consist of images that are intended to shock or disgust.
- Playlists with titles or descriptions that mislead viewers into thinking they’re about to view videos different than what the playlist contains.
- Playlists with videos that don’t individually violate our policies, but are collected in a way that violates the guidelines. This includes but is not limited to:
- Educational content featuring nudity or sexual themes for the purpose of sexual gratification
- Non-sexual content but focus on specific body parts or activities for sexual gratification
- Documentary videos of graphic violence for the purpose of glorifying or shocking
- Playlists that include multiple videos that have been removed for violating our guidelines. If you notice that multiple videos in your public playlists have been removed or deleted, please take some time to remove those videos from your playlists as well. If you notice that some videos in your public playlists violate our Community Guidelines, please flag them and remove them from your playlist.
- Playlists that depict physical, sexual, or emotional mistreatment of minors.
Please note this is not a complete list.
Examples
Here are some examples of content that’s not allowed on YouTube.
- A playlist of news footage of aerial bombings accompanied by a title such as “Best bombings”.
- A playlist with a title that calls for the segregation of people with intellectual disabilities.
- A playlist that posts an individual’s nonpublic personal identifying information like a phone number, home address, or email for the express purpose of directing abusive attention or traffic toward them.
- A playlist that collects videos of dangerous or threatening pranks, such as a playlist of fake home invasions or robberies.
- A playlist of videos featuring minors accompanied by a title such as “sexy".
What happens if content violates this policy
If your content violates this policy, we will 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. Note that violative URLs posted within the video itself or in the video’s metadata may result in the video being removed.
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 chance 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 will not expire and your channel will 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 will be terminated. Learn more about our strikes system.
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. We may prevent repeat offenders from taking policy trainings in the future. Learn more about channel or account terminations.