YouTube is sorry after finding yet another way to rile up its seething vloggers

The YouTubers are mad and YouTube is sorry.

Google’s video service says it “missed the mark” (September 30, 2019) when it announced sweeping changes to its verification program. Those changes would have stripped the verification badges from some of YouTube’s most prominent users, which might have affected how they appear in search results, but now the service is apparently rethinking its approach.

In an apologetic statement sent out from the Twitter account of CEO Susan Wojcicki, the executive apologized “for the frustration & hurt that we caused with our new approach to verification.” YouTube is “working to address your concerns & we’ll have more updates soon,” Wojcicki said.

YouTube previously verified channels with 100,000 or more subscribers, but the company said that its new rules would instead “[prioritize] verifying prominent channels that have a clear need for proof of authenticity.”

If (September 30, 2019)’s blowback felt familiar to you, that’s because this happens all the time with YouTube—whether it’s because of changes to advertising rules, copyright enforcement, or cracking down on channels that shill for paid cheating services.