What is a censor beep?

A censor beep is an audio tone on a specific frequency. Nowadays we are not only hearing beep sounds on radio or television anymore. It became a universal tool for storytelling as well as censorship across multiple mediums, like in Videos on YouTube or Audio in Podcasts.

What does it mean?

The definition based on Wikipedia is

“(…) the replacement of a profanity or classified information with a beep sound (…) in television and radio.”

To understand what an audio beep is, I uploaded a video to youtube. If you need a bleep sound effect, you can just download one free of charge.

Censor beep usage on Youtube?

On Youtube censor beeps are used to beep out a word or it is used to indicate a conceptual break in a video. This can be something like a cut to a different scene, or a humoristic usage of a beep sound.

Let’s say in your Video there a word used you would classify as “bad language” or profanity. The FCC (Federal Communication Commission) has the right to regulate broadcast that is un-bleeped. Furthermore Youtube is trying to serve family-friendly content – profanity or inappropriate language is currently (jan 2020) not allowed based on the Advertiser-friendly content guidelines.

That’s why you would download a beep sound and overlay it on your audio. There is also a way to get your videos beeped automatically. Try it for free.