Popular Counter-Strike: Global Offensive YouTuber and steamer War Owl briefly lost his YouTube verification.
He confirmed the news in a statement on Twitter and opened up on what had happened.
“I lost channel verification on YouTube. Be careful of people impersonating me asking for skins/money or advertising gambling (which currently happens on Twitter and Steam) not sure why this happened, I get impersonated all the time,” wrote War Owl on Twitter. Right after this tweet, War Owl clarified that while he still had his verification checkmark, he received an email from YouTube notifying that he would be losing it soon.
The incident happened after YouTube announced new criteria for channel verification. Previously, any channel with over 100,000 subscribers was eligible to receive a badge. Under the new criteria, channels must go through a more in-depth process. YouTube announced that they would only verify channels that are relevant and prominent in the platform.
The change affected all types of content creators, including many in the gaming industry. Small content creators rely on the verification mark to increase their engagement with other YouTubers and avoid copycats. Steamers use YouTube as a way to offer highlights of their streams to fans and engage with a new audience.
The decision drew the ire of many YouTubers, as well as their fans. As a result YouTube amended their decision and returned the verification badges of many content creators, including War Owl.
“Wow, YouTube actually listened and will be giving back verification to all of the channels affected. Credit where credit is due,” wrote War Owl on Twitter after YouTube announced that verified content creators would keep their verification checkmark.
YouTube is still reviewing channels so they can protect content creators from channels that steal or repurpose their content.
At the moment of this publication, War Owl’s channel is verified and has 1.19 million subscribers.
