Shedding advertisers, YouTube sails into storm over content censorship

At a time when YouTube is facing competition from newer rivals, the last thing it needs is anything that affects its revenue or its brand appeal.

But it’s gone down that path repeatedly through the course of this week.

YouTube’s appeal was that it had a wide variety of videos, from pop singers and cats, to Mercedes ads making a grab for the younger market and even ISIS posts.

But it’s a different story for advertisers who don’t always see where their ads end up – YouTube’s parent company Google also has two million websites that take part in its ad network.

In the latest, major carriers AT&T and Verizon, along with others like pharmaceutical chain Johnson & Johnson, pulled their ad campaigns with YouTube because their ads were appearing next to “distasteful” videos including those promoting terrorism, racism and homophobia.

In a further move that’s pulled millions of dollars of revenue, 250 UK organisations have also begun boycotting the platform, according to the Times of London. These include McDonald’s, L’Oreal, Audi, the BBC, The Guardian, retailer Marks & Spencer and the British Government. 

Google’s Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler apologised and said, “Starting today, we’re taking a tougher stance on hateful, offensive and derogatory content." 

But analysts say YouTube hasn’t done enough to calm the waters, and expect more advertisers globally to pull campaigns. 

Part of the problem is that few take heed of YouTube/ Google’s promise to monitor content and ad placement. Every minute, 400 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube. But Google insists that 98% is flagged within 24 hours. 

Earlier in the week, YouTube apologised to the LGBT community after several LGBT vloggers claimed that YouTube was hiding their material through the “Restricted Mode” filtering feature. 

YouTube explained it was unintentional and an accidental result of its trying to censor “inappropriate” content. But the LGBT community was hardly pacified; footage which disappeared included a lot of perfectly innocuous content, such as a lesbian couple reading out their wedding vows.

YouTubers tested out the restrictions by posting side-by-side screenshots showing which videos were restricted. Titles including words like “gay,” “lesbian,” and “bisexual” were hidden:

whats your damage youtube#youtubeisoverparty pic.twitter.com/Fp9R82SzCQ

— ? (@coolerpatrol) March 20, 2017

YouTube’s argument is that the term of reference are wide, and that videos which cover health, politics and sexuality may also be unintentionally masked.

It said, as part of its apology to creators, “The bottom line is that this feature isn’t working the way it should” and that the company is “going to fix it.”