YouTube remains without a significant number of ads, after several companies decided to withdraw their advertising.
Google is having financial and image problems in the last week, after several major brands withdrew their ads from YouTube, due to the extremist content on the site.
In the United States, telecommunications companies such as AT&T and Verizon, as well as other big names such as GSK, Pepsi, Walmart, Johnson & Johnson and Enterprise, have withdrawn their ads from YouTube. The phenomenon originated in Europe, after several companies here withdrew their ads, in turn, following an investigation by the Times.
The content of large companies appeared on the same page as videos promoting extremist content. For example, Verizon ads appeared in videos of Egyptian cleric Wagdi Ghoneim, who is banned from entering the United States amid extremism.
Following these events, Google has publicly apologized, pledging to give brands more control over the videos where their ads will appear. Demos thinktank researcher Alex Krasodomski-Jones says this is a first for YouTube, as it faces not only image damage but also financial damage for the first time.
The current dispute brings to the fore once again the idea that brands like YouTube need to be more careful about the content that appears on the site, as happened in the case of Facebook, after the explosion of false news. In just 15 minutes, The Guardian was able to discover the T-Mobile commercial for abortion videos, Minecraft banners for cocaine snapshots, and Novartis drug commercials along with videos of "feminism is cancer."