Back in February, famed YouTuber PewDiePie got into a bit of trouble over a video he posted in which it was deemed insensitive and anti-Semitic. In fact due to that video, YouTube cancelled the second season of the YouTuber’s show and also removed him from “Google Preferred”, which is basically an advertising service for platforms that are deemed “brand-safe”.That being said, it seems that Google wants to further clamp down on such content and have announced that they will be taking more proactive steps in removing ads from extreme content, whether it be websites or videos, that are created to attack or to harass other people based on things like gender, race, religion, and so on.
According to Google, “So starting today, we’re taking a tougher stance on hateful, offensive and derogatory content. This includes removing ads more effectively from content that is attacking or harassing people based on their race, religion, gender or similar categories. This change will enable us to take action, where appropriate, on a larger set of ads and sites.”
One of those changes is to introduce a higher level of brand safety that is set by default which means that brands can safely advertise without worrying about being associated with objectionable content. Presumably the goal here is to take away advertising from such websites in hopes that it might discourage them, or at least make it so that they can’t profit from their content. We’ve seen this done before where Google and Facebook have banned/restricted fake news websites from using their ads network.