YouTube has been on the hot seat for quite some time now because it has a content problem. Last spring, companies like Verizon and AT&T pulled ads from the platform because they were appearing next to extremist videos. YouTube was again hit with another round of ad-pulling later in the year when reports came up that a portion of the site’s children’s content tuned out to be not exactly kid-friendly.
The platform recently experienced another problem over uproar from Logan Paul’s Aokigahara forest video. According to Bloomberg, YouTube may begin vetting videos that are posted on its most popular channels on the platform.
Logan Paul’s channel was in YouTube’s Google Preferred accounts, which is a group of top-tier, highly viewed channels that Google sells ad space on at a higher rate than normal. YouTube yesterday pulled Paul’s Preferred status as part of a response to his videos. For content creators that still have the Preferred status, those accounts will not reportedly be going through a vetting process in order to make sure their content is appropriate for the brands trying to buy ad space on videos.
Sources told Bloomberg that Google will use both human moderators and AI to spot videos that may be inappropriate for ads. Google spokesperson, in a statement to Bloomberg, said that “We built Google Preferred to help our customers easily reach YouTube’s most passionate audiences and we’ve seen strong traction in the last year with a record number of brands. As we said recently, we are discussing and seeking feedback from our brand partners on ways to offer them even more assurances for what they buy in the Upfronts.”
