guardian | Google’s decision-making process over which YouTube
videos are deemed “advertiser friendly” faces scrutiny from both brands
and creators, highlighting once again the challenge of large-scale
moderation.
The company last week pledged to change its advertising policies after several big brands pulled their budgets from YouTube following an investigation that revealed their ads were shown alongside extremist content, such as videos promoting terrorism or antisemitism.
Havas, the world’s sixth largest advertising and marketing company,
pulled all of its UK clients’ ads, including O2, BBC and Domino’s Pizza,
from Google and YouTube on Friday, following similar moves from the UK government, the Guardian, Transport for London and L’Oreal.
Google responded with a blog post promising to update its ad policies, stating that with 400 hours of video uploaded to YouTube each minute “we don’t always get it right”.
However, the inconsistencies behind the company’s ability to police
advertising on controversial content are coming to light – and it’s not
just advertisers who are complaining. Some YouTube creators argue their
videos are being unfairly and inconsistently “demonetized” by the
platform, cutting off their source of income that comes from the revenue
share on ads placed on videos.
