Normally, offensive content is taken down from Google platforms such as YouTube after an internet user signals the problem to the company. While Google did not say that it will start taking down hateful content on its own initiative, it did promise "to remove ads more effectively from content that is attacking or harassing people based on their race, religion, gender or similar categories".
It will also tighten safeguards to ensure that ads show up only against legitimate creators in the YouTube Partner Program, as opposed to those who impersonate other channels or violate our community guidelines. In addition, YouTube team is "taking a hard look" at its community guidelines to determine what content is allowed on the platform, not just what content can be monetized.
In the coming days and months, Google will also introduce new tools for advertisers to more easily and consistently manage where their ads appear across YouTube and the web. The company is 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.
New account-level controls should make it easier for advertisers to exclude specific sites and channels from all of their AdWords for Video and Google Display Network campaigns, and manage brand safety settings across all their campaigns with a push of a button. In addition, brands will be able to exclude higher risk content and fine-tune where they want their ads to appear. Advertisers and agencies will also gain more transparency and visibility on where their ads are running, and in the coming months all advertisers will have access to video-level reporting.
Google said it also plans to add more staff and expand its use of A1 and machine learning to help filter out offensive content. In cases where advertisers find their ads were served where they shouldn’t have been, the company will offer a new escalation path to make it easier for them to raise issues. As a result, such cases should be resolved "in less than a few hours".
