Advertisers ditch YouTube over predatory comments on videos of kids

[ItsMitch]

YouTube has hit another snag that could detrimentally affect it's content creators in terms of child privacy and pedophiles with very graphic thumbnails to very disturbing videos of children TV characters. The story is coming in from SidAlpha and the article is hosted by Reuters London's team. The main story is in regards to ToyFreaks where they posted very sketchy videos and YouTube allowed the channel to last for months, and it was at one point top 100 in the top children's channels. The current advertisers that have left are the following: Mondelez International (who own: Cadbury, Nabisco, Oreo and many more) Now TV, Adidas, HP, Deutsche Bank any many many many more. YouTube screwed the pooch on this one personally and they have made a huge mistake in this and they'll definitely pay the price for this. Personally, expect your YT income to drop even more. 

 

Reuters news opening statement:

Quote

 

LONDON (Reuters) - Confectionery maker Mondelez, Lidl, Mars and other consumer goods producers have pulled advertising from YouTube after Britain’s Times newspaper found the video-sharing site was showing clips of scantily clad children alongside the ads of major brands.

 

 

Statements from some big brands: 

 

Quote

 

A Mars spokesperson said: “We are shocked and appalled to see that our adverts have appeared alongside such exploitative and inappropriate content. We have taken the decision to immediately suspend all our online advertising on YouTube and Google globally. Until we have confidence that appropriate safeguards are in place, we will not advertise on YouTube and Google.”

Lidl said: “It is completely unacceptable that this content is available to view and it is, therefore, clear that the strict policies which Google has assured us were in place to tackle offensive content are ineffective. We have suspended all of our YouTube advertising with immediate effect.”

Deutsche Bank said: “We take this matter very seriously and suspended the advertising campaign as soon as we became aware of it.”

A Cadbury spokesperson said: “Whilst we investigate this matter we have suspended all advertising on the channel until we have clarity from YouTube on how this situation occurred and are satisfied that an acceptable solution has been put in place.”

A spokesperson for Adidas said: “We recognize that this situation is clearly unacceptable and have taken immediate action, working closely with Google on all necessary steps to prevent this from happening again.”

 

 

Videos: 

 

 

Sources:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-youtube-videos/brands-pull-youtube-ads-over-images-of-children-idUSKBN1DO1KF

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/24/youtube-aggressive-action-predatory-comments-videos-children

 

 

 

[Crunchy Dragon]

Whoa.

 

Something like this happened a little while ago with airsoft channels since they "promoted killing" in their videos, a lot of channels have been able to keep going thanks to Patreon though

[Enderman]

Haven't noticed any significant drop in income, at all.

[ItsMitch]

5 minutes ago, Enderman said:

Haven't noticed any significant drop in income, at all.

I think the thousands of content creators would have different opinions. 

[Enderman]

2 minutes ago, SC2Mitch said:

I think the thousands of content creators would have different opinions. 

Maybe the ones who make clickbait, offensive, controversial content.

[potoooooooo]

8 minutes ago, Enderman said:

Haven't noticed any significant drop in income, at all.

Now that's what i call anecdotal

[ARikozuM]

2 minutes ago, potoooooooo said:

Now that's what i call anecdotal

Vol. 17?

[Enderman]

1 minute ago, potoooooooo said:

Now that's what i call anecdotal

Yeah, I'm just stating my experience.

 

Maybe you should take a look at the types of channels who are having their monetizing removed, it's mostly clickbait, offensive, controversial channels with suggestive thumbnails or stuff like that.

[ItsMitch]

4 minutes ago, Enderman said:

Maybe the ones who make clickbait, offensive, controversial content.

Coming in from our favorite copyright attorney Leonard J French who was simply discussing Net Neutrality and how vital it is gets demonized, please look at the bottom one that's unlisted. Don't think that adpoca doesn't exist when it clearly does, chap.

 

[Enderman]

6 minutes ago, SC2Mitch said:

Coming in from our favorite copyright attorney Leonard J French who was simply discussing Net Neutrality and how vital it is gets demonized, please look at the bottom one that's unlisted. Don't think that adpoca doesn't exist when it clearly does, chap. 

Again, it's a controversial topic, and the title has "demands bribes" in it so it probably got picked up by the YT algorithm.

After a few days or weeks they should get remonetized again when they are approved by a real person.

 

I've had the same thing happen to me with some videos that had "hardcore" in the title (because the game mode I was playing was hardcore)

I just requested the review and they're now monetized again.

 

I'm talking about the videos that are actually just crappy clickbait from youtubers that use offensive thumbnails or say bad things in their videos, the stuff that actually gets permanently demonetized.

[Uzume]

Unfortunately content moderation is a job that attracts people who have an axe to grind. Once hired, they tend to focus only on their own ideological battles and not the larger job at hand (like moderating children's content). Youtube has been extremely busy censoring and demonetising lately, so they can't claim to lack the capacity either.

 

Now traditional media gets to have a field day at their expense. And holy hell are they going to beat it up.

[ItsMitch]

1 minute ago, zzrhardy said:

Unfortunately content moderation is a job that attracts people who have an axe to grind. Once hired, they tend to focus only on their own ideological battles and not the larger job at hand (like moderating children's content). Youtube has been extremely busy censoring and demonetising lately, so they can't claim to lack the capacity either.

 

Now traditional media gets to have a field day at their expense. And holy hell are they going to beat it up.

Definitely, the media will just eat this up and spit YouTube out; the main offending channel has been active for months and it wasn't acted on until now. 

[TimeOmnivore]

Thanks for linking that video - I thought this was that whole weird thing about videos of people dressing up as Disney/comic book characters doing stupid/adult/fetish things appearing on YT Kids at first, and thought these advertisers were just a tad bit overreacting. But after watching that video by SidAlpha... yeah, that's some pretty fucked up shit.

 

I still feel (a very small amount of) sympathy towards YouTube - I'm pretty sure they're still in the red, and, given the sheer scale of the site, I can't imagine the amount of resources that must be needed to moderate (a majority of) everything, without relying on shit algorithms. That being said, come on YouTube, this type of shit should be the first thing you guys should be looking for to remove from the site. I could understand if maybe a few videos made it through the cracks, but come on - entire channels dedicated to child exploitation? Really? This seriously shouldn't have been allowed to happen.

 

Hopefully larger channels have enough different revenue streams to not become completely dead. And at the rate these "something shit is on YouTube, all advertisers pull out" stories keep appearing, I have increasingly little hope for almost any newcomer to be able to even partially rely on YouTube as a job opportunity, which sucks. Hopefully YouTube is able to get their act together this time and sort this out quickly, or YouTube's popularity with advertisers could become fucked beyond repair, which may just completely ruin YouTube, which I really don't want to see happen.

[PlayStation 2]

But you know, we gotta go out and ban channels for no reason whatsoever.

[AresKrieger]

The fact that I know exactly what they are talking about (apparently not), or that Elsa and Spiderman comes to mind when looking at this post says more than enough about this crap

 

Or not.......this is worse than the creepy kids channels I originally thought of...I would pull ads too if it were me, what does youtube's flagging actually do?

[LinusTech]

Floatplane. 

 

That is all. 

[William Payne]

I dont want to know about what kind of videos they are referencing but man that is one problem with youtube allowing anyone to upload. You have a chance of getting the weirdo creepy predator types. Im not surprised by the response really as anything questionable involving kids is like a total don't touch with a 10 foot pole situation. Creepy crap. 

[Matu20]

Advertisers are the new sensitive fucks, throwing shade everywhere.

[Space Reptile]

6 hours ago, Enderman said:

Maybe the ones who make clickbait, offensive, controversial content.

well alot of people i watch from Ashens to W4stedspace or Mighty Jingles are completely fine YouTube wich do civil and fun entertaiment 
and the get hit HARD by this as the algorithm thinks they promote something they dont , heck just swearing is enough it gets picked up by the auto subtitles as such and you get demonotised as they dont want someone say "fuck" 

 

play a game w/ "war" in the title and you are fucked already , World of Warships? world of warcraft? warthuner?  yea sorry we dont wanna promote killing , you are out 

[jagdtigger]

5 hours ago, LinusTech said:

Floatplane. 

 

That is all. 

Just make sure it wont end up as vessel...

 

/On topic

Well it seems youtube is gone full retard...

Edited November 25, 2017 by jagdtigger

[apm]

35 minutes ago, Matu20 said:

Advertisers are the new sensitive fucks, throwing shade everywhere.

look into elsagate. 

its definitly some weird shit that kids shouldnt watch.

[Taf the Ghost]

6 hours ago, zzrhardy said:

Unfortunately content moderation is a job that attracts people who have an axe to grind. Once hired, they tend to focus only on their own ideological battles and not the larger job at hand (like moderating children's content). Youtube has been extremely busy censoring and demonetising lately, so they can't claim to lack the capacity either.

 

Now traditional media gets to have a field day at their expense. And holy hell are they going to beat it up.

It's not a content moderation issue, though, in this one. This is actually their algo actually feeding up these related videos. A number of journalists have been pointing out the very specific problem going back at least a year or two, and it's only recently just blown up finally.

5 hours ago, TimeOmnivore said:

Thanks for linking that video - I thought this was that whole weird thing about videos of people dressing up as Disney/comic book characters doing stupid/adult/fetish things appearing on YT Kids at first, and thought these advertisers were just a tad bit overreacting. But after watching that video by SidAlpha... yeah, that's some pretty fucked up shit.

 

I still feel (a very small amount of) sympathy towards YouTube - I'm pretty sure they're still in the red, and, given the sheer scale of the site, I can't imagine the amount of resources that must be needed to moderate (a majority of) everything, without relying on shit algorithms. That being said, come on YouTube, this type of shit should be the first thing you guys should be looking for to remove from the site. I could understand if maybe a few videos made it through the cracks, but come on - entire channels dedicated to child exploitation? Really? This seriously shouldn't have been allowed to happen.

 

Hopefully larger channels have enough different revenue streams to not become completely dead. And at the rate these "something shit is on YouTube, all advertisers pull out" stories keep appearing, I have increasingly little hope for almost any newcomer to be able to even partially rely on YouTube as a job opportunity, which sucks. Hopefully YouTube is able to get their act together this time and sort this out quickly, or YouTube's popularity with advertisers could become fucked beyond repair, which may just completely ruin YouTube, which I really don't want to see happen.

Google treats YouTube has a loss leader and it's pretty clear it also works as the "place to send the less competent" within the company. They'll spent a lot of money to toss a massive Bot program at something, but they won't implement the obvious policies that are needed. It's not *that* hard to segment their content around age demographics for their advertising and have a specific team for keeping tabs on the "children friendly" areas. 

 

The broadcast networks have Censors for a reason. It's like YouTube never actually wants to put the important systems into place, yet wants to be treated the better than the rest. YouTube is not where Google sends its best employees, especially at the management level.

[captain_to_fire]

6 hours ago, SC2Mitch said:

Coming in from our favorite copyright attorney Leonard J French who was simply discussing Net Neutrality and how vital it is gets demonized, please look at the bottom one that's unlisted. Don't think that adpoca doesn't exist when it clearly does, chap.

 

I bet no ads from Comcast, AT&T and Verizon

[Taf the Ghost]

10 minutes ago, Space Reptile said:

well alot of people i watch from Ashens to W4stedspace or Mighty Jingles are completely fine YouTube wich do civil and fun entertaiment 
and the get hit HARD by this as the algorithm thinks they promote something they dont , heck just swearing is enough it gets picked up by the auto subtitles as such and you get demonotised as they dont want someone say "fuck" 

 

play a game w/ "war" in the title and you are fucked already , World of Warships? world of warcraft? warthuner?  yea sorry we dont wanna promote killing , you are out 

YouTube uses a "soft" Blacklist, yet they can't figure out how to use a "soft" Whitelist. The company is run by people obsessed with Trees when they have a Forest to manage. 

[Bouzoo]

7 hours ago, Enderman said:

AI'm talking about the videos that are actually just crappy clickbait from youtubers that use offensive thumbnails or say bad things in their videos, the stuff that actually gets permanently demonetized.

 

I'd urge you to watch this video, it's only 2 min. Arguably the best reviewer out there that has no reason to get demonetized. Very careful with his words as well. 

 

I think we went a bit to OT.