"(T)o say that the individual is culturally constituted has become a truism. . . . We assume, almost without question, that a self belongs to a specific cultural world much as it speaks a native language." James Clifford

Monday, December 4, 2017

Advertisers Remove Ads on YouTube: Fair to YouTube and Video-Producers?

One day after Thanksgiving in 2017, “a fresh wave of advertisers suspended commercials on Youtube after their ads showed up next to videos that appeared to attract pedophile viewers.”[1] Youtube had removed ads from roughly 3 million videos, but the company’s use of human and AI checkers simply could not keep pace with the number of uploaded videos. Even so, Diageo, maker of Smirnoff and Johnnie Walker (alcohol drinks), announced it would hold off its ads until “appropriate safeguards are in place.”[2] Mars and Adidas took a similar line. The question is whether those advertisers were being fair to Youtube and even the producers of the videos.

After a similar revolt the previous March, YouTube and hired more human reviewers and furnished advertisers with new tools to control where their ads would appear. Did not those companies have some responsibility to keep tabs on their ads, especially given the incentive to do so.  “Advertisers don’t want their brands associated with objectionable content and as well can face criticism if their advertising money goes to support the videos’ creators.”[3] It would not have been prudent to leave it to YouTube to review the ads, especially if the advertisers knew that YouTube was short-staffed. Unlike the advertisers, YouTube’s management had little incentive; the pull-out of certain advertisers in March, 2017 had “little impact” on Alphabet’s (Google’s) overall business. In fact record profits were posted.

Of course, the ability and will to review ads, whether by the advertisers or YouTube, would not in itself have caught the cases in which the videos themselves were salubrious and yet received unsavory comments from viewers. An advertiser could hardly be blamed for placing an ad in such a video; neither would YouTube be culpable in having permitted the video in the first place. So even if sordid comments could be readily removed, the incentives would be lacking. To be sure, YouTube is responsible for removing such comments, and just because blame would not be justified concerning innocent videos does not necessarily mean that such blame would not be exacted anyway.

The nuances of responsibility suggest that the reaction of the advertisers was rather blunt and even impulsive, and not entirely fair to YouTube and the video-producers. Distinguishing between objectionable and proper videos, and then between the latter and disgusting comments would be part of a smarter, more refined approach.




[1] Stu Woo and Sam Schehner, “YouTube Deals With Another Advertiser Backlash,” The Wall Street Journal, November 25-26, 2017.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.