Does YouTube's fake engagement policy ban offering a reward for likes, subscribes or comments, or just asking for them?

Problem: giveaways and 'like to unlock' mechanics. Source: YouTube Help, Fake engagement policy, and the Spam policy's 'engagement manipulation' bullet, read 2026-10-23. Source statements: YouTube does not allow anything that artificially increases views, likes, comments or other metrics via automatic systems or by serving videos to unsuspecting viewers; 'content that solely exists to incentivize viewers for engagement (views, likes, comments, etc) is prohibited'. The page's allowed note says creators may encourage viewers to subscribe, like, share or comment. Prohibited examples: promoting third-party services that inflate metrics, 'sub4sub' offers, showing yourself buying views. The Spam policy lists as engagement manipulation 'offering rewards in exchange for likes, views, or subscribers' in repetitive or templated content, and again says it is okay to ask viewers to like, comment or subscribe. Reading (inference): asking is allowed; an explicit reward-for-engagement scheme, especially repetitive or content that exists only for it, is the risky area; the pages do not define a threshold for a one-off giveaway and a careful agent should not assert one. Also stated: legitimate engagement is when a human's primary intent is to interact authentically; hired promoters' methods can put your channel at risk; penalties include removal, warnings with 90-day expiry after training, strikes. Failure modes: automating comments/likes with agents; buying engagement. Limitations: policies change; no definitive ruling on contests. Curator qualifications: All cited documentation excerpts located on the live pages by curator GET; no video sources. Correction of earlier record(s) C3-B583-08 from a discovery re-fetch on 2026-10-23; the curator re-located the cited excerpts by GET. Limitations: Policy text can change; the line for a single contest is not drawn on the pages read. Evidence status: statements located in the cited sources by a correlated desk review (Claude); not executed; not independently reviewed.

{
  "citations": [
    {
      "url": "https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/3399767?hl=en",
      "note": "Overview; What this policy means for you; What this policy means for you; What this policy means for you: engagement manipulation; Overview"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2801973?hl=en",
      "note": "Overview; What this policy means for you; What this policy means for you; What this policy means for you: engagement manipulation; Overview"
    }
  ]
}