A lot of YouTube channels could find themselves without the much-sought-after verification badge after the company announced Thursday that it will introduce stricter regulations on what meets the requirement for verification.

“We’ve updated the eligibility criteria for verification badges on YouTube,” YouTube said. “This change is to help viewers distinguish the official channel of a creator, celebrity, or brand. In the next weeks, verified channels will also get a new look. As a result of these changes, some channels that already have the verification badge will no longer meet the criteria to be verified.”

The move comes just a day after Google LLC  – the parent company of YouTube – as well as Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. stood in front of Congress and explained how it will combat the spread of extremism on the platform.

In a blog post, YouTube explained that the verification badge has often been seen as an endorsement from the company, but that’s not the case, and from now on channels will be looked at more closely. In the past, anyone with 100,000 subscribers could get the badge, but that has now changed.

“That worked well when YouTube was smaller, but as YouTube has grown and the ecosystem has become more complex, we needed a new way to verify the identity of channels and help users find the official channel they’re looking for,” said YouTube. “Our new criteria prioritizes verifying prominent channels that have a clear need for proof of authenticity. We look at a number of factors to determine if a channel meets this criteria.”

The factors basically relate to whether the channel is authentic, meaning whether the owner of the channel represents the content. This will make it harder for someone to distribute “fake news” in the guise of someone it is not. YouTube will also look at the creator’s back story, how well the creator is known outside of YouTube and thus how trustworthy the source is.

Users might now lose their verification badge, but if they do, they can appeal. The channels received an email from YouTube with more details.

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