YouTube Updates: Memberships Features, Self Certification & more

YouTube has has announced the expansion of Super Thanks to more creators, along with new experiments and features for channel memberships.

The experiments and updates by YouTube for channel memberships have been announced by Creator Insider, the informal channel by YouTube, and may not be widely available currently.

Super Thanks

Super Thanks was added to the slate of revenue stream for YouTube creators in mid-2021 to enable fans to show gratitude to content creators and financially support them.

Fans can purchase Super Thanks to express appreciation of the content on YouTube and would see an animated GIF and, get a distinct, colorful comment to highlight their purchase as an additional bonus, which creators can respond to. Viewers will be able to purchase the local currency equivalent of four price points ranging between 2 USD and 50 USD.

Super Thanks had been first launched in the beta phase and were only available to select monetizing creators and viewers in 68 countries including India, on desktop and mobile devices (Android and iOS).

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It had then been expanded to more creators, and the platform has now announced it would be rolled out on a wider scale next year, along with a new experiment for select creator videos. The experiment enables customizable comments for Super Thanks, available only to a select group of viewers.

Channel Membership Features

YouTube has rolled out two new tools for creators to manage their channel memberships, first is the ability to export the list of members to CSV, second is allowing creators to create member-only forms to garner info from them. The forms would only be accessible by members, and the feature has been rolled out globally but only for English-language users.

Self-Certification Update

This update is applicable to creators who are a part of the YouTube Partner Program and also corresponds to a new addition in the advertiser-friendly content guidelines, and the self-certification questionnaire in the Upload Flow will include a pointer called 'Enabling dishonest behavior'. This type of content includes "glorifying or promoting dishonest behavior", such as trespassing, cheating, or computer hacking that is personal or paid for.

The enforcement on this content area would remain the same, but the effort aims to increase transparency around what types of content could support advertising.