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Google has failed to convince major brands (such as AT&T, Verizon, Enterprise Holdings, Volkswagen, and Tesco) to continue advertising on YouTube, following the "revelation" that ads can appear next to extremist, homophobic, anti-Semitic, raunchy, etc. content. From Google's Tuesday response:
We know advertisers don't want their ads next to content that doesn't align with their values. So starting today, we're taking a tougher stance on hateful, offensive and derogatory content. This includes removing ads more effectively from content that is attacking or harassing people based on their race, religion, gender or similar categories. This change will enable us to take action, where appropriate, on a larger set of ads and sites. We'll also tighten safeguards to ensure that ads show up only against legitimate creators in our YouTube Partner Program—as opposed to those who impersonate other channels or violate our community guidelines. Finally, we won't stop at taking down ads. The YouTube team is taking a hard look at our existing community guidelines to determine what content is allowed on the platform—not just what content can be monetized. [...] We're changing the default settings for ads so that they show on content that meets a higher level of brand safety and excludes potentially objectionable content that advertisers may prefer not to advertise against. Brands can opt in to advertise on broader types of content if they choose.
The growing boycott started in the UK:
On Friday, the U.K. arm of the Havas agency, whose clients include the BBC and Royal Mail, said it would halt spending on YouTube and Web display ads in Google's digital advertising network. In doing so, Havas UK CEO Paul Frampton cited a duty to protect clients and "ensure their brands are not at all compromised" by appearing alongside or seeming to sponsor inappropriate content. The decision by a global marketing group with a U.K. digital budget of more than $200 million to put its dealings with Google on "pause" followed a recent controversy over YouTube star Felix "PewDiePie" Kjellberg, who lost a lucrative production contract with Maker Studios and its owner, Walt Disney Co., over "a series of anti-Semitic jokes and Nazi-related images in his videos," as the Two-way reported. As the BBC reports, "Several high profile companies, including Marks and Spencer, Audi, RBS and L'Oreal, have pulled online advertising from YouTube."
Google's Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler also promised to develop "new tools powered by our latest advancements in AI and machine learning to increase our capacity to review questionable content for advertising".
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Dunbal on Sunday March 26 2017, @03:32AM (10 children)
a tougher stance on hateful, offensive and derogatory content
Who gets to decide what is hateful, offensive or derogatory? Are there clear, published guidelines? Or is this another "we'll make it up as we go along" trips down censorship lane?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 26 2017, @03:38AM
It's simple. Say if you are CNN none of your videos get blocked, but if you put up a video that discusses the same topic as one of CNN's videos, and you point out why they are wrong, you get flagged.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by takyon on Sunday March 26 2017, @03:47AM
It's YouTube. You know, 400 or so hours of video uploaded every minute, and rising? ContentID was a compromise with big IP corporations like Viacom. You are lucky if your fair use rights are respected. So edgy YouTubers in the gray area are going to get rekt regardless of how "clear" (as mud) the guidelines are. At least there are degrees of how you can get screwed. Losing 96% of ad revenue because of being labelled inappropriate is not as bad as being banned entirely.
You could move to vid.me or Dailymotion or whatever, but the amount of people watching your videos is going to decline a lot, along with the revenue. YouTube has yet to fuk users over enough to get them to switch services, but this could do it.
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(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 26 2017, @04:20AM (5 children)
> Who gets to decide what is hateful, offensive or derogatory?
The people paying to run the ads.
Its their money, you don't think they should get to chose what they spend it on?
If you don't pay for my speech that's censorship!!! ::rolleyes::
Entitled prick.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 26 2017, @04:42AM
But the point is that they don't watch every video to decide. Instead, they rely on automated systems that look for certain phrases, or identified audio, or whatever else. This means that the advertisers don't really decide, the people who write the assumptions in the algorithm do. And just like any heuristic, there will be shortcuts and false identifications an all sorts of problems. Then, they probably supplement the algorithm with tests by people who actually have time to sit through and categorize various videos, and the kind of people who do that usually can because they have some sort of agenda (whether they believe it is beneficent or maleficent).
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Dunbal on Sunday March 26 2017, @10:14AM (3 children)
Its their money, you don't think they should get to chose what they spend it on?
No. If they're afraid of the RISK of advertising on an open platform like youtube, they should spend their money elsewhere instead of shutting down youtube. It's kind of ironic. Eventually when nothing but sanitized content is available on youtube, no one will use youtube anymore. And advertisers will be throwing money into a vacuum like they do on TV today. The best bit is - no one actually watches/cares about the ads. Talk about the tail wagging the dog.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Sunday March 26 2017, @10:45AM
That's exactly what they're doing. They're saying "we won't spend money on your platform while it does X"
If enough companies do this then the advertising income drops, and google either comes up with a way to appease their lost customers, or they shut down.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 26 2017, @11:43AM (1 child)
> The best bit is - no one actually watches/cares about the ads. Talk about the tail wagging the dog.
Man, that is some crazy-ass motivated reasoning. No one cares about the ads? Tell that to PewDiePie.
Hell, you clearly care about the ad money or you wouldn't be trying to argue that this is a bad idea.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 27 2017, @12:33AM
Maybe he doesn't care about the ad revenue but does care a bit about debunking the arguments of the perpetually offended.
(Score: 3, Informative) by chromas on Sunday March 26 2017, @08:41AM
YouTube Heroes [knowyourmeme.com].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 26 2017, @01:51PM
The whole thing is a red herring. We all know what countries the supposedly "offended" players do business in, and who they are willing to get in bed with. They have no problem doing business with Nazi's, they just don't want their main stream customers to know that.
Note that AdSense already has the requisite feature set for avoiding religious or political content (which almost all hate speech is). So at most it is a question of accuracy regarding their filters, not the lack of them.
My guess is that the players making the beef are involved in some kind of price fixing scheme, and any hooplah going around about this issue is related to that in some fashion.