YouTube is expanding its crackdown on ad blockers to include mobile apps.
The video-sharing platform has confirmed that users using a third-party ad blocking app could come across buffering issues or an error message as part of the new move.
“We’re strengthening our enforcement on third-party apps that violate YouTube’s terms of service, specifically ad-blocking apps. Viewers who are using these third-party apps may experience buffering issues or see the error ‘The following content is not available on this app’ when trying to watch a video,” the Google-owned site confirmed in a new post from TeamYouTube on its support page.
The team insisted the ruling is motivated by wanting to allow creators to be “rewarded for viewership.”
“We want to emphasize that our terms don’t allow third-party apps to turn off ads because that prevents the creator from being rewarded for viewership, and Ads on YouTube help support creators and let billions of people around the world use the streaming service,” they explained.
“We only allow third-party apps to use our API when they follow our API Services Terms of Service, and when we find an app that violates these terms, we will take appropriate action to protect our platform, creators and viewers,” the team continued.
However, they urged anyone wanting to watch videos on YouTube without adverts to subscribe to the relevant tier.
“We also understand that some people prefer an entirely ad-free experience, which is why we offer YouTube Premium,” they added.
