Advertisers Are Still Boycotting YouTube Over Offensive Videos (go.com)

An anonymous reader quotes the Associated Press:The fallout from the YouTube boycott is likely to be felt through the rest of this year. Skittish advertisers have curtailed their spending until they are convinced Google can prevent their brands from appearing next to extremist clips promoting hate and violence... At one point, about 250 advertisers were boycotting YouTube... The list included big-spending marketers such as PepsiCo, Wal-Mart Stores, Starbucks, AT&T, Verizon, Johnson & Johnson, and Volkswagen.

It's unclear how many, if any, of those have returned to YouTube since Google promised to hire more human reviewers and upgrade its technology to keep ads away from repugnant videos. Both Verizon and AT&T, two companies that are trying to expand their own digital ad networks to compete with Google, told The Associated Press that they are still boycotting YouTube. FX Networks confirmed that it isn't advertising on YouTube either. Several other boycotting marketers contacted by AP didn't respond.
Thursday CEO Sundar Pichai told analysts that responding to the boycott, Google held "thousands and thousands" of conversations with advertisers, and one analyst now estimates reduced ad spending on YouTube and Google could cost the company $300 million this year alone.

Comments

I didn't notice

[johanw]

Who watches Youtube (and ther rest of the internet) without an adblocker anyway?

Re:I didn't notice

[dfm3]

So then just use something like uBlock Origin with one of the anti-adblock lists enabled.

Website owners can implement adblock checks all they want, but somebody will come along and develop a way to circumvent it. When the website gets updated, someone will just update the blocklist again. the more popular the website, generally the shorter the delay. Each time it happens, the site developers need to expend time and resources if they want to stay on top of the arms race.

Children and bathwaters

[Opportunist]

Advertisers were successfully bullshitted into believing that their brands would be tarnished by appearing next to "offensive" videos. The problem is that YouTube went overboard and now considers everything "offensive" that's not basically cute kittens playing with yarn, not just extremists videos demanding the execution of everything who follows the wrong delusion.

The problem here is that the reason people went from traditional media and to YouTube is exactly that they're fed up with having "family friendly" bullshit shoved down their throats. If that's all that remains on YouTube, people will simply move on.

And then nobody sees your pretty ads either.

Re:Children and bathwaters

[jellomizer]

I think the issue isn't that when people see the add for Pepsi next to a violent extremist video people will relate that Pepsi is endorsing the video. But the act of continued advertising next to the video is endorsing it. What a lot of companies are slowly realizing is that what they spend money on can often have further reaching consequences. Do you want the PR after the next mass shooting that the kids weapons were funded from your company due too add revenue on his hateful YouTube blog?
Or even with the recent Fox News with Bill O'riely, he didn't get fired for what he did but got fired because major companies were pulling out. He get fired, the company that pulled out looks good because it appears they have a conscience the get press for that and it is free advertising.

Re: Children and bathwaters

[MightyMartian]

So we have this measure which is iffy at best, and in most cases hopelessly biased towards certain socioeconomic groups, but hey, it's a great meme "Blacks are dumber than whites, and it's not racist because this groovy Intelligence Quotient test says so!"

In general, psychology and neurological sciences have long past moved away from IQ, simply because it's absurd to imagine that something as complex as human cognition can be fit into one number, considering cognition itself seems to be the product of multiple processing and memory systems in the brain.

So promoting "whites have higher IQs than blacks" *MAY* be true for some kinds of intelligence tests, that kind of testing is so flawed that it's hard to see how proponents of the claim aren't just racists once again using the cloak of pseudoscience to try to bolster their hatred.

Re: Children and bathwaters

[MightyMartian]

Because public schools are run by morons who are still stuck in 1950s in regards to assessing students. As it is, even with standardized IQ tests, the numbers have been rising in many populations, including African-Americans for decades, suggesting that what IQ measures isn't really raw cognitive capacity at all (ie. the Flynn Effect).

One of the biggest reasons for lower cognitive ability isn't genetic at all, but poor nutrition during the developmental years, and that's one of the reasons that socio-economic status has been viewed as a significant player in general and specific cognitive abilities. There's no doubt there's a genetic component, but like anything, genetics sets general parameters, and it is environment that takes over after conception. Considering that many ethno-racial groups in the Americas have not been equal beneficiaries of over all socio-economic improvements, that would strike me as a good reason for why we see phenomena like the Flynn Effect. But that's a rather dull explanation, and not one that allows some Neo-nazi to declare he's superior to African-Americans.

Re:Children and bathwaters

[yuriklastalov]

Yes. Being a Special Snowflake is not a matter of right/left, rather it's an additional axis. It's plain that the types of behaviors associated with the Snowflakes are present on both sides of the political spectrum. On the left, we have the Intersectional Feminist/Progressives and their opposites in autism, the Alt-right. Identity politics wouldn't be possible without opposing parties, the Alt-right is a "reactionary" response to the activities of the Radical Social Justice crowd.

Re: Children and bathwaters

[Howitzer86]

It's not a racial thing, it's a poverty thing

While that's a cute proposal (and I agree with it), it's not the prevailing narrative from the people talking about this.

The typical narrative here is that blacks are more violent because of their alleged low average IQs. We're told that as one reason why people should be okay with the idea of separating from one another based on race. If you believe it, you have an easy way to stay safe and to avoid the potential that your children may fall in love with one and produce inferior offspring.

Obviously, the only fix these people will accept is an official return to segregation, or at the very least, a cultural acceptance of our natural tendency to segregate.

As for the Neanderthals, since they're all dead, nobody knows how intelligent they were. We know how big their skull cavities are, but the size of their ancient bones does not clue us in to their intelligence. If it suggests anything for sure, it's that they were better adapted for survival in cold climates.

Re: Children and bathwaters

[Aighearach]

IQ tests are complete crap. I've got a high enough score that it isn't sour grapes. More like syrupy grapes. Total complete bullshit, and the funniest part is that to get a high score I have to lie and give the answers that I think the test writer wanted to hear instead of the answers that I think are actually true.

Also, the algebra word problem at the end? The fish is always 72 inches, because the test authors suck at math and only one algebra story problem was ever created for IQ tests, and it was copied to all the others. So before even starting the real questions, skip to the end and get your Bonus Points.

If you're from a community where kids aren't subjected to IQ tests all the time... no Bonus Points for you, you bleeping moron. What are you, one of those [unpopular ethnicity] [pejorative]s?!?!

Trying to explain that to these idiots won't work, because they're not actually talking about IQ scores. They're just blowing dog whistles that us northerners can't hear without special training.

Re: Children and bathwaters

[epyT-R]

That post didn't say these tests were complete indicators of ability. In fact, it said otherwise. The truly 'problematic' thing is the constant drenching of science in political correctness to make it impossible for the public (and possibly many researchers) to tell what's factually correct.

But hey, I get it, it's the age of the alt-right, where saying "Blacks are dumber than whites" is now apparently some sort of unassailable dogma, and where a previous generation's debunked or at least heavily questioned claims are brought back and again asserted to be absolute truth.

Actually, no. The current trend hasn't changed much. It's just that these snowflakes didn't get their way with one specific election, and being the snowflakes they are, they bitch and whine that this is the end of the world.

The reality is that the left still controls the majority of the media and public discussion on these topics. It's nearly impossible to debate them openly, and even when it does happen, it's impossible to point out logical or factual errors in their viewpoints without being labeled as some form of bigot. This is coupled with a real risk of getting kicked out of school/work (there's an example of systemic oppression) by their local socjus fifth column, whether it's the campus 'diversity' office or HR.

Oddly Enough...

[cirby]

YouTube seems to be putting almost no effort into finding ways to limit offensive ads placed over entertaining YouTube videos.

Let's see...

[rmdingler]

There's a show I really want to see. A GoT episode, a Firefly all-nighter, furry porn... doesn't matter.

But. In order to watch the show, I have to let this neighbor family into the house to watch with me who has a track record of stealing stuff from my yard.

Nah. Chances are I can watch the show another way, and if I can't, I'd still rather not pay some unknown, upfront cost for the pleasure.

Marketing Opportunity

[bill_mcgonigle]

That should drive ad prices lower for brands that are less susceptible to bullying by special interest groups, right?

Is Google actually allowing market elasticity on ad prices? The biggest problem I see with being randomly assigned to whatever video is that it might be a sign of very poor targeting. I mean, white supremacists aren't likely to go out for Chinese food tonight, right? But they probably still need to buy laundry detergent .

Nobody really thinks that Tide is refusing to sell detergent to these boorish idiots. I wonder who actually spends time watching their videos and thinks "well, Tide obviously supports their views." I find "reality TV" offensive to my sensibilities but the only connection I make there is that the advertisers want the audience's money.

And there's the rub - thinking that attacking supply will eliminate demand is folly, but attacking demand is hard and the bullies are ultimately lazy.

Re: youtube has adds?

[TheRaven64]

I'm pretty sure it has adds. And multiplies, and divides, and function calls, and object construction. Unless you use NoScript, of course.

I'm still boycotting Advertisers....

[Lumpy]

I'm still blocking all the ad's I can until the advertising networks start vetting their ad's and actually paying for real bandwidth. Almost every website loads twice as fast if you block the big ad network domains.

Re:Ineffective and wrong.

[Attila Dimedici]

But the people running this protest don't want there to be free speech. They want only speech they approve of to be allowed.

The statement may be factual but usage is racist

[aepervius]

See the problem is that it is well known that IQ test are actually very strongly cultural and educational, and testing 2 populations of different cultures, can lead to irrelevant result comparison. And this is the case here, people are getting from that that black are unintelligent or whatever, but the is almost certainly the wrong conclusion, as normal population, with normal education, should have the same "intelligence". The correct conclusion is that there are obstacle (cultural, wealth and institutional) to the education of black people in the US and that the test comparison show that, and nothing else.

Re:extremist clips promoting hate and violence

[epyT-R]

..and I wonder what groups are responsible for tarnishing that aspect of the constitution to a point where advertisers don't feel comfortable with it?