Last year, YouTube started disabling videos for users who use an ad-blocking extension, and also encouraged them to allow ads while watching videos or subscribe to YouTube Premium to avoid them. Now, the company has decided to shift its focus to mobile devices and restrict the viewing of videos with ad blockers.
YouTube states in a blog post published this Monday that users who access videos through a third-party app that blocks ads may encounter buffering issues or see an error message that says: “The following content is not available in this app”.
However, YouTube now states that its policies do not permit “third-party apps to disable ads because this prevents creators from being rewarded by their audience“. This measure specifically targets mobile ad blockers like AdGuard, which enable users to access YouTube within the app and watch videos without any form of advertising. It may also impact browsers that offer ad-blocking features, such as Brave and Microsoft Edge.
“We only allow third-party applications to use our API when they follow our API Terms of Service,” says YouTube. “When we find an application that violates these terms, we will take appropriate measures to protect our platform, creators, and viewers.”
YouTube is once again encouraging users to subscribe to YouTube Premium in their post. This option removes all ads in the YouTube app while supporting content creators on the platform. Undoubtedly, this move will be frowned upon by a large part of the community, which has become accustomed to using ad blockers to watch videos on YouTube for years.
