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Still More Advertisers Pull Google Ads Over YouTube Hate Videos (morningstar.com)
"A week after Google apologized for running customers' advertisements alongside objectionable videos, triggering a change in policy, its YouTube site is still rife with examples that are angering more big advertisers and causing some to cut spending with the tech giant," reports the Dow Jones Newswire. Reporters from the Wall Street Journal spotted ads from Microsoft, Amazon, and Procter & Gamble appearing on hate videos -- and thus indirectly funding them. An anonymous reader quotes their report:
Asked about the Journal's finding that their ads were still appearing with such content on YouTube as of Thursday night, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo Inc., Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Dish Network Corp. said Friday they were suspending spending on all Google advertising except targeted search ads. Starbucks Corp. and General Motors Co. said they were pulling their ads from YouTube. FX Networks, part of 21st Century Fox Inc., said it was suspending all advertising spending on Google, including search ads and YouTube. Wal-Mart said: "The content with which we are being associated is appalling and completely against our company values."
An executive at one of the affected companies complained that Google "had assured us over the past few days that our brands were safe from this type of content. Despite their assurances, it's clear they couldn't give assurance."
An executive at one of the affected companies complained that Google "had assured us over the past few days that our brands were safe from this type of content. Despite their assurances, it's clear they couldn't give assurance."
The first article cites these examples
Ads for Coca-Cola, Starbucks, Toyota, Dish Network, Berkshire Hathaway Inc.'s Geico unit and Google's own YouTube Red subscription service appeared on racist videos with the slur "n-----" in the title as of Thursday night. Those ads ran before two videos that dub a racist song over videos of former first lady Michelle Obama or Chicago rapper Chief Keef. The videos, posted by the same account, have been viewed more than 425,000 times and 260,000 times, respectively.
Another video titled "Black people in their natural habitat," with a racial slur in the description, played monkey noises over footage of black men in prison and images of black civil-rights leaders Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. Google showed ads for Amazon, Microsoft and GM's Chevrolet unit before or during that video.
If it is really true that uploaders have used the "n" word and other racial slurs either in the video title or in the video description, then Google could easily prevent ads from playing over those videos.
Seem to recall articles here on /. about Google's reviewers having to look at so much shit, they basically broke down mentally within a year - ignoring the human costs, that's a very large turn-over if you need to hire and train 20.000 new people yearly.
I run several chat forums and every now and then Google changes the rules, one week something is fine, the next it isn't and you're responsible to scrub all that no longer complies. Last time they did this, there was 23 million posts across several chat forums to review or risk losing my Adsense account, to which there is little recourse.
I hope it hurts, I hope it really hurts!
Someone on here once pointed out a relevant quote from Commander William Adama:
I think this is the place where diplomats warn that 'there is a risk of us moving in that direction' when they mean to describe the current situation.
I think you have misunderstood what is happening here. YouTube is not removing these videos, it is simply preventing adverts from these companies from appearing next to them. That generally means that the content creator can't earn revenue through YouTube any more, but the videos are not being censored or removed.
This has actually been happening for ages due to copyright issues. For example, a lot of Mario players on Twitch also post clips to YouTube, but they can't be monetized because Nintendo won't allow it and will file copyright claims if you try to. So they make their money from Twitch and Patreon and merchandise, rather than YouTube ads.
Sucks but you can't really force advertisers to give you money.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
The few online ads that make it through to me are usually totally irrelevant
So, slightly better than most other forms of advertising then... Like TV and billboards which are usually totally irrelevant. Also remember that AdBlock makes the tracking/profiling less effective so you are probably not getting typical results. People without ad blocking find ads creepily following them around the web and stuff like that.
All they really care about is that their ads don't appear next to overtly racist content, stuff that uses the n-word and is thus easy for journalists to find.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
No, News Corp has been doing this for years. The reason is Murdoch thinks Google and Google News specifically is killing the news industry, and that the iPad will save it (or at least he thought that a few years ago). It's pure inter-corporate warfare being played out through manipulation of public opinion. The WSJ in particular are experts at it.