YouTube Says Creators Could See Subscriptions Drop As It Purges Shuttered Accounts

YouTube notified users on its Support site yesterday that they could see their subscriber counts drop as it continues ongoing efforts to purge illegitimate accounts — including spam, abuse, and closed accounts. (Closed accounts refer to channels that were either shuttered by a user or by YouTube itself for violating policies, the company explained).

“Sometimes, due to technical or process reasons, we may need to remove more than the usual amount of closed accounts on one day,” reads the post from a YouTube staffer who is identified only as Hazel.

She added that creators should note any subscriber changes within the next 48 hours, and that the changes can be glimpsed in the analytics section of their YouTube Studio pages by selecting ‘see more’ under the graph, then clicking ‘subscription source, then ‘closed accounts’. Hazel added that since the subscriptions are being eliminated from closed accounts, it shouldn’t have any impact on a channel’s overall watch time.

YouTube announced a similar undertaking last December, stating that it had “identified and fixed an issue that caused some spam not to be removed.” Such purges are always unwelcome to creators, especially when it impacts their eligibility for the YouTube Partner Program, which mandates that creators must have 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 valid public watch hours over the last 12 month in order to monetize.