Why it matters: With a place as lively as YouTube, receiving tweaks on a major or minor scale is a fairly regular occurrence that sometimes requires content creators to be on their toes. The latest change involves warning them about a decline in subscriber count after the platform rids itself of closed accounts and removes them from the site's metrics.

YouTube ruffled quite a few feathers last month when it announced a new rule under its "Account Suspension & Termination" policy for terminating accounts that the site no longer deems to be "commercially viable."

The latest change to the platform might not be as controversial, but it does remain noticeable, especially for content creators, some of whom might see a decline in their subscriber count, an attribute that potentially makes or breaks a YouTube channel by directly affecting the ability to monetize it through various methods.

The company says that the purge drive comes as part of keeping the website clean of spam and abuse from accounts that are in policy violations as well as removing those which users have willingly shut down.

It also said that a channel's watch time should remain unaffected by this change and that it will start to reflect in YouTube Analytics this week. Creators who'd like to see the closed accounts removed from their channel can do so by going to "See more" in the YouTube Analytics menu and then select "Closed Accounts" from "Subscription Source."