YouTube has begun booting creators who don’t meet the requirements of its exclusive short-form community program

This month, members of the creator community were notified that YouTube would begin enforcing the requirements to ensure “the most engaged and interested creators” were being managed, according to an email viewed by Business Insider.

One shorts creator told BI that they thought the requirements were “pretty fair,” and that some members of the community had already been removed after failing to meet the criteria. They added that some creators were also given a warning before being removed. The creator asked to remain anonymous to protect their relationship with YouTube, but their identity is known to BI.

(New creators can apply to join the program through an application form.)

The decision to make the shorts community more exclusive didn’t come as a surprise to many creators, given the increased popularity of the feature.

The number of daily shorts views reached 70 billion in Q3 2023, up from 50 billion at the beginning of the year, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said during the company’s most recent earnings call in October.

And according to data from the creator-marketing platform CreatorIQ, brands increased their influencer-marketing spend on YouTube shorts by 700% in 2023.

Here’s the email YouTube sent creators outlining the requirements for the shorts community program:

Community Requirements

As Shorts popularity rises, to ensure that we are managing the most engaged and interested creators, we’re moving forward with the following criteria for those who would like to remain in the community:

• Post consistently on Shorts (ie. at least 1x a week)

• Use the Shorts camera creation tools to create your Shorts

• Attend at least 1 community session quarterly

This story has been updated with additional information from YouTube.