YouTube's "Inauthentic Content" rules and how to keep your channel safe
Update to "Youtube's repititious content" policy
July 15, 2025: We’re making a minor update to our “repetitious content” policy to better clarify this includes content that is repetitive or mass-produced. We are also renaming this policy from “repetitious content” to “inauthentic content.” This type of content has always been ineligible for monetization under our existing policies, where creators are rewarded for original and authentic content. There is no change to our reused content policy which reviews content like commentary, clips, compilations, and reaction videos.
As you can see from the print screen above channels are being demonetized. Some Channels have been around since YouTube started and had millions of subscribers and made good money from their channel. I decided to write about this issue after every time I go on YouTube finding more and more saying I have been demonetized.
There are a lot of videos talking about this issue and honestly to me it is difficult to really understand the real reasons. Some say it is because YouTube wants to get away from AI in video making yet YouTube has some of it’s own AI tools for content creators. But here is the thing. YouTube has two different things going on. There is a check box stating you used AI and that is for using AI to create "photorealistic" fakes that look like real life. You only have to check a disclosure box if your video:
Clones a real person's voice using a computer.
Changes real-world footage to make it look like something happened when it didn't (like making a real street look like it's on fire).
Generates a fake video clip that looks 100% like a real camera captured it.
The other thing YouTube looks for is “Inauthentic Content”. The "Inauthentic Content" policy is YouTube’s official rule against mass-produced, low-effort videos. It's the exact policy they use to take away monetization from channels that look like they are run by machines instead of real people.
When YouTube checks a channel under this rule, they look at the channel as a whole. Here are the exact examples YouTube gives for what is strictly banned from making money:
Mass-Produced Templates: Videos that use the exact same layout, background, and structure over and over again, where only a tiny detail (like a title or a single word) changes from video to video.
AI Slideshows with No Substance: Moving images or scrolling text on a screen with a robotic voice reading something, but zero actual human commentary or unique perspective.
Reading Other People's Work Word-for-Word: Channels that just scrape news feeds, articles, or other websites and have a voice read them out loud without adding any original thoughts, humor, or editing.
Lazy Speed/Pitch Adjustments: Simply taking music or audio clips, changing the speed or pitch slightly, and re-uploading it as "new" content.
So even if someone checks the I used AI box it doesn’t save you from being demonetized If YouTube thinks you are using any of the above.
Another big problem is that some channels aren’t even doing any of that and they are still demonetized. One man got demonetized and he was filming his own cats. I wrote to him, well if you get demonetized making videos of your own cats then all of us are in trouble. But I think that is because YouTube uses AI bots to run the whole platform. Our own channel got a content strike because the bot thought that Oromo language reciting Koran was they same as piano in a sleep video. If you do get demonetized you must try to get a human. Like I told the man with the real live cat videos, go to X.com to @teamyoutube. They helped us with the Oromo incident.
It is because of all of this that we are afraid to do sleep videos. Honestly, what is repetitious content. Is having a hand painted picture with the some music for an hour for a sleep video repetitious or inauthentic. It seems that this is very subjective. So right now we are doing cat compilations of cat clips we purchase and our own cats and our own painting or should I say the painting my wife does for the channel as Shy Artist. I put my own words in and sometimes my own voice in. We don’t like using our own faces because of what AI is doing with that. People have been falsely arrested because the AI thought that was the mans face of the one who did a crime and that person can have never been to the area they are talking about. Or like what Grok did. Grok did deep fakes of peoples faces attacking them to bodies doing unthinkable things. So our faces will never be on YouTube or any other platform.
So this is what we are doing ourselves to stay away from the “Inauthentic Content “ rule of YouTube. I never use the same clip twice. We stopped even doing our best cat shorts of the year. NO repetitions at all. I use my own humor. My humor is my own and doesn’t belong to any one else. My wife paints the speech bubbles and backgrounds for me. She keeps painting and I keep having new stuff to use so eventually everything will be unique. I no longer use anything that is free for content creators. Everybody uses, YouTube Audio, Pixabay and Pexels. I pay for my audio and I use four of them the audio attached to DaVinci Resoulve, TunePocket, Zatsplat and Uppbeat. And , like I said until I can figure out what to do I may never do sleep videos again. The reason I think I will not do sleep videos again is because my wife Shy Artist might have to paint like 20 backgrounds or paintings for a sleep video so they don’t say she is repetitous. That is a lot of paintings for her. Also, changing the music all the time makes it difficult for people to be able to sleep.
There are people on YouTube who are fighting back, Gomukhi Channel believes that the YouTube "Inauthentic Content" is a Black-Box and dictatorial policy. In my previous video, I have proved that it is a scam to punish small YouTube channels. For the benefit of all YouTube Content Creators - who are actual or potential victims, I would like to aggressively contest the policy. For this, I need your constant support & cooperation. If you have legal background, please suggest me what are my options. I have learnt that before moving to court, I have to send a demand letter to YouTube to sort out the matter in good faith. I have sent out the letter and I am discussing the content with you. Any suggestions, comments, help & support is appreciated.
Some think that YouTube is demonetizing all small channels, to make money off the ads. Well, one thing for sure, YouTube would be difficult for small creators to sue. Section 230 Protected: Under federal law (Section 230), tech platforms have a massive legal shield. It gives YouTube the absolute right to choose what content they allow on their site and how they distribute it. Because of this, judges almost immediately throw out lawsuits from creators who try to sue YouTube for deleting their videos or taking away their monetization.
I personally think the safest thing is to not depend only on YouTube. I think we have to try and be as unique as possible. And if YouTube does demonetize you if you can afford it get an attorney or go to @teamyoutube. Gomukhi Channel explains how he is fighting back. Please comment and let us know how you keep your channel safe and how you keep your YouTube monetization.
Please take a look at our store where you can get unique real human hand mulled and hand painted watercolor backgrounds and graphics, store.serenityofthemind.com . Also take a look at our channel @serenityofthemind for various videos.
