Community Guidelines

These cover harassment, dangerous acts, spam, nudity, impersonation and misinformation, and they decide whether content is allowed on the platform in the first place. Breaking them costs a strike. Three strikes inside a rolling ninety-day window puts the channel at risk of termination, and an active strike also blocks YouTube Partner Programme eligibility, so a channel carrying one cannot monetise while it stands. The rules most often confused with these are the advertiser-friendly content guidelines, which decide what earns money. A video can sit comfortably inside Community Guidelines and still be demonetised, because the two systems answer different questions.