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On Friday, YouTube announced plans to prevent channels that promote anti-vax content from running ads, explicitly stating that such videos fall under its policy prohibiting the monetization of videos with "dangerous" content. This decision comes after advertisers on YouTube have retrieved their ads from these videos as a result of BuzzFeed News surveys.
"We allow ads to appear in videos where we allow video streaming. Videos that promote anti-vaccination content violate these rules. We apply these rules vigorously and if we find a video that violates them, we take immediate action and remove the ads, "said a YouTube spokesperson in an email sent to BuzzFeed News.
Seven different advertisers said they did not know that their ads appeared in videos such as "Mom is looking for vaccines, discovers horrors of vaccination and goes away without a vaccine," which advocates vaccinating children, and contacted YouTube to select placements. programmed.
Their ads appeared on videos of channels such as VAXXED TV, LarryCook333 (a supporter of StopMandatoryVaccinations.com) and iHealthTube, which have since been demonetized or prevented by YouTube.
Nomad Health, a health technology company, told BuzzFeed News that it "does not support the anti-vaccination movement," was "unaware of the broadcast of our ads alongside the videos anti-vaccination "and that she" would take steps to prevent it from occurring in the future. "
Vitacost, a company specializing in discounted vitamins whose ads appeared on anti-vax videos, announced it had withdrawn its ads from YouTube on Tuesday, after a blogger revealed that ads were being broadcast for videos children sexually exploited.
"We removed all YouTube ads on Tuesday morning when we saw content issues. We had strict rules to prevent our ads from appearing on sensitive content and they were not effective, as promised, "Vitacost spokesperson told BuzzFeed News by email.
"We will continue to stay out of the platform until these changes are made and other advertisers have proven effective," said Vitacost spokesman.
YouTube advertisers contacted by BuzzFeed News about their ads on anti-vax content said they did not know that their programmatic, algorithm-controlled ads appeared alongside those videos.
"When we buy programming media, we specify settings that limit the placement of our association ads with certain content. Nevertheless, sometimes ads are shown in places we do not approve. That's one of those cases, "said a spokeswoman for Retail Me Not, a discount drug company. "We are working to exclude this placement now."
"As soon as we learned about this, we immediately contacted YouTube so that our ads would not only be shown on this channel, but also to ensure that content related to conspiracy theories was completely excluded," said a spokesperson. from Grammarly, publisher of writing software. "We have implemented strict exclusion filters with YouTube that we believe would exclude such channels. We've asked YouTube to make sure this does not happen again. "
Earlier this week, Grammarly and other advertisers also asked YouTube to pull their ads of videos of young children apparently viewed and commented by a network of pedophiles. Nestle, AT & T, Hasbro, Kellogg and Epic Games were among the brands that drew their commercials from the controversy over child pornography.
"All content – including comments – putting minors at risk is odious, and we have clear rules prohibiting this on YouTube. We took immediate action by removing accounts and channels, reporting illegal activity to the authorities and disabling comments on tens of millions of videos containing minors, "YouTube told USA Today on Thursday. "There is still a lot of work to be done and we continue to work to improve and catch the abuse faster."
Other companies who have asked YouTube to prevent their ads from appearing alongside anti-vax content include:
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Brilliant Earth, a jewelry company, said it has "made internal changes to our ad settings and will also follow up with our advertising partners to prevent our ads from showing up next to this content." ".
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CWCBExpo, a marijuana trade show, said it "would enforce strict rules on content placement and eliminate hundreds of YouTube channels / videos and negative keywords."
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XTIVIA, who said he was "reviewing the location of the advertisement", which "was not [its] target requested. "
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SolarWinds, a software company, said the placement was unintentional and had "adjusted [its] filters to refine the targeting of our ads on YouTube to better fit our target audience, MSPs and technology professionals. "
After a measles outbreak, US representative Adam Schiff asked Facebook and Google, the owner of YouTube, to address the risks of spreading incorrect medical information about vaccines on their platforms. Facebook responded last week by saying that it would take "steps to reduce the spread of fake health information on Facebook."
Prior to Schiff's request, YouTube said it was working on algorithmic changes to reduce the appearance of conspiracy theories in its Up Next recommendations, a category that contains some, but not all, anti-vax videos. Following a BuzzFeed News report released earlier this week, which revealed that YouTube's algorithm still frequently recommended anti-vaccination videos from channels like VAXXED TV and StopMandatoryVaccinations.com, YouTube said: "Like so many Algorithmic changes, "the changes made to its Up Next recommendation system" to be progressive and more and more accurate over time. "
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