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."

Comments

Alternative media.

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone say goodbye to dissenting opinions on YouTube.

Re: Alternative media.

[AmiMoJo]

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.

Re:Alternative media.

[jandersen]

Here's an interesting article: http://www.freepresshouston.co...

'Free speech' has become a mantra for bullying the people whose opinion is that there are things they don't like and don't want to see; but that in itself becomes a kind of censorship. Not by the government, but by other groups - and it is extremely easy to bombard websites with updates that drown out opinions that you as a person or group don't like.

Ideally, if all people were honest and genuinely played by the rules of good citizenship etc, free speech would be truly free, but it only takes a small minority of bullies to take that away. Governments in democratic countries don't actually want to limit people's freedom of speech, because when people feel they can let off steam, they are less likely to want to upset things too much. It is the different bullying groups, the extremists, religious or otherwise, who talk the loudest about "freedom" and constitutional right, and they are also the ones who are working the hardest to take that away from the general public.

What videos exactly?

[elrous0]

I've yet to see a single link to one of these "hate videos" that supposedly has these companies so pissed. While I've no doubt that there are hateful videos on Youtube (there are pretty much ALL KINDS of video on Youtube), are they actually citing specific videos here, or just reacting to vague reports that that OMG! there may be some assholes on Youtube (clutch the pearls!!)?

Re:What videos exactly?

[wvmarle]

Or an excuse to pull out of a failing venture?

The few online ads that make it through to me are usually totally irrelevant - except those that come with Google's search results as those are based on my location and current interest, i.e. what I happen to search for. The rest is mostly adblocked to begin with.

Also I have seen relevant ads on other sites - where the site itself sold the ads, to advertisers directly related to the topic at hand (a recycling site posting banner ads of recycling companies).Those were not adblocked, in part for not being part of an ad network so they fell off the radar. Not intrusive and relevant ads, that's totally fine with me.

So it sounds like Internet advertising has to go back to basics. Sites themselves selling ads to advertisers instead of pulling in random ads. Advertisers themselves looking for relevant places to show their ads, instead of having their ads plastered over random sites. At the same time those failing ad networks can stop their invasive tracking and profiling, as it's quite obvious that doesn't work either.

Re:What videos exactly?

[Anonymous Coward]

For starters, here's an entire channel called Dindu Nuffins with nothing but racist videos.

There are video series like Chimpout! episode 2 (and 1, 3, 4, etc.) which encourage such insightful dialogue as:

"IF ANY MARSHAL WANTS TO COME DIE FOR A JEW, THEN COMEOVER AND TELL ME TO GO TO YOUR COURT OR SOMETHING EQUALLY AS STUPID. I HAVE HAD ENOUGH AND WILL NOT PARTICIPATE IN THIS RHESUS MONKEY BLOOD RITUAL. THE NEGRO GRAVEN IMAGE AND THE ALBINO JEW GRAVEN IMAGE NEGRO CAN TAKE THEIR BLOOD DRINKING ELSE WHERRE."

There are thousands of apparent one-off videos like You stupid fucking n-ggers!

Hatred is all over YouTube, just as it's all over the internet in general. I imagine the advertisers are responding to the phenomenon at large, and not to specific videos or artists, otherwise they could just request to have their ads pulled from those specific channels. (I have no idea whether or not there were ever ads running on the links above, I don't see YouTube ads thanks to uBlock.)

Re:What videos exactly?

[Dutch Gun]

Perhaps also an effort to encourage Google to come back and offer these advertisers some discounted rates? It's unlikely that these advertisers will stay away for long. But why not pull out of a deal temporarily and see if things look more favorable for the next contract?

I don't think there's a lot of love for the dominant position Google has in internet advertising, so of course other companies will take any opportunity they can get to stick it too them just a bit. This just seems like an excuse to do that.

Re:What videos exactly?

[stephanruby]

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.

Re:What videos exactly?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

It's almost like Google has a search problem on their hands.

Re:What videos exactly?

[AmiMoJo]

The advertisers don't want to police it themselves, checking individual channels for suitability. They want it to be like TV, where they say "we want X minutes/day, and only during family-friendly programming" and the network does the rest. That's kind of the whole point about how YouTube advertising works - Google has massive analytics and targeting capability which obviously they don't want to share with anyone, so you just get to select your parameters and they do the rest.

But Dissent is Now HATE

[Kunedog]

Everyone say goodbye to dissenting opinions on YouTube.

Disagreement is now harrassment.
Mockery is now hate speech.
Offense is now trauma.
Criticism is now abuse.
Compelling criticism is now violence.
Anyone who talks about subjects the MSM wants to suppress is now a troll.
Anyone at random is a racist/sexist/white supremacist/nazi/etc if they say so.

The use of this alarmist (and usually, simply wrong) language is ubiquitous and deliberate. It's all a pretense to justify a disproportionate censorial "response," especially when they know no response is warranted at all. It's also a brazenly transparent tactic, especially since Twitter/Reddit/etc rarely seem to use it against users that properly align with their politics.

A popular tranny just had two of her YT videos demonitized, one that criticized Islam, and another that criticized feminism:
https://twitter.com/MsBlaireWh...

Re:But Dissent is Now HATE

[AmiMoJo]

And refusing to give you a platform is now genocide.

Don't get me wrong, YouTube has fucked up royally here, but your claims are laughable because I can still go to YouTube right this second and watch neo-Nazis spouting off, or Carl of Swindon ranting about feminazis, or The Golden One living out his liberal murder fantasies in video games, and all still monetized.

It's obvious to anyone with a level head that YouTube is just incompetent. You can't attribute any political or philosophical or moral motivation to their actions, because they are too inconsistent to be rational.

Re:But Dissent is Now HATE

[Raenex]

And refusing to give you a platform is now genocide.

Who is claiming that? Oh, you, in typical strawman fashion.

Don't get me wrong, YouTube has fucked up royally here, but your claims are laughable because I can still go to YouTube right this second and watch neo-Nazis spouting off, or Carl of Swindon ranting about feminazis, or The Golden One living out his liberal murder fantasies in video games, and all still monetized.

How does that refute what is desired by the leftist agitators versus what YouTube is actually doing? The boycott came about because YouTube didn't sufficiently turn itself into a "safe space".

It's obvious to anyone with a level head that YouTube is just incompetent. You can't attribute any political or philosophical or moral motivation to their actions, because they are too inconsistent to be rational.

It's obvious to anybody who's been paying attention that the left has been hysterically ramping up their cries about "hate speech" and leveling it at anybody who opposes their ideological positions.

Re:But Dissent is Now HATE

[Raenex]

Yet when the haters on the right does the exact same thing. It is okay?

Where is the right trying to "deplatform" left-wing speakers?

Let's put it this way when Obama was putting out Obamacare did he threaten every single democrat who voted no?

What does that have to do with free speech on gigantic platforms like YouTube?

Now which side is dangerous, which side is vengeful?

Let's see, who is committing the violence and trying to prevent the speech of others? That would be the left.

Also remember every single Islamic terrorists is a conservative. They are all right wing. They all want theirs at over science. Now which American party also wants religion over science?

Which political party responds to critiques of Islam with cries of "Islamophobia" and "racist"? Which political party is against restrictions on Muslim immigration? Which political party has apologists for Sharia law leading women marches?

The left went from fighting political Christians to embracing Islam.

Re:Hire Actual Human Reviewers Maybe?

[GNious]

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.

Good! Now they know how it feels!!!!

[Leslie43]

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!

Care to buy ad time on a platform based on random

[_Shorty-dammit]

YT: Care to buy ad time on a platform based on random people uploading videos based on whatever randomness they're into?

Companies: Yes!

YT: OK, thanks!

Companies: Hey! How come these random videos we're advertising over contain all manner of random stuff?!

YT: Um, duh?

Re:Hit Job on Google?

[IamTheRealMike]

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.

Re:Hit Job on Google?

[drinkypoo]

Just over a month ago, the WSJ did a hitjob on Pewdiepie, one of Youtube's most-subscribed personalities, causing his ad funding and Youtube Red channel to get cancelled.

Just over a month ago, PewDiePie did something stupid that could easily convince a moron that he is an anti-semite. Because it was so stupid, and he made no attempt to actually be clever and was instead only incendiary as per usual, he lost his ad funding and youtube red channel, and will have to find his own soapbox. If he had anything worth saying, he would have been able to find someone else to pick him up, but he doesn't so he didn't. That's the whole story.

Re: Care to buy ad time on a platform based on ran

[Zero__Kelvin]

They Target the audience successfully, unless your claim is that racists don't like Wal Mart. The complaint is that those companies don't like some of their potential and actual customers, not that their ads are wasted on them.