YouTube ‘missed the mark,’ says CEO apologizing for verification removal mega-blunder

OOPS.

Oh, YouTube, you've had a terrible week. And it's all your very own fault.

YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki apologized on Twitter Friday for needlessly alienating an unknown but large number of its "Verified" content creators this week by announcing to them in a form email that they would no longer be verified, and yada yada yada.

Yeah, we got one of the emails, too.

"I'm sorry for the frustration [and] hurt that we caused with our new approach to verification," Wojcicki said on Twitter today. "While trying to make improvements, we missed the mark. As I write this, we're working to address your concerns [and] we'll have more updates soon."

To our creators & users-I'm sorry for the frustration & hurt that we caused with our new approach to verification. While trying to make improvements, we missed the mark. As I write this, we're working to address your concerns & we'll have more updates soon.

- Susan Wojcicki (@SusanWojcicki) September 20, 2019

Reports Julia Alexander at The Verge:

YouTube announced changes to its verification policy yesterday, which resulted in several popular creators receiving emails alerting them about losing their verified status. Creators have time to appeal the decision before the policy goes into effect at the end of October. The new policy is supposed to ensure that verification is given to creators, brands, and artists who are prominent both on YouTube and outside of it and who are at risk of impersonation.

The company knew that removing verification statuses would upset creators, but it felt it was a necessary step to battle impersonation of top accounts. That's why certain steps are being taken to help creators who were told they're losing verified statuses, but who want to contest it. YouTube is going to try to manually review every single appeal that comes from creators before the verification policies change in late October, according to the company.