These days it seems that YouTubers are getting smarter about working ads into videos. Instead of relying on YouTube to insert ads on their behalf, YouTubers are now adding their own ads directly into the videos from companies that are willing to sponsor them. Unfortunately this has resulted in ads that are sometimes questionable.
For example the BBC found in their investigation that there were multitudes of videos that contained ads for essay cheating services. Obviously this did not sit well with YouTube who gave these channels until the 4th of May to edit their videos to take out these ads, but that clearly did not happen resulting in over 1,000 videos being pulled.
While these ads aren’t exactly considered illegal, they do violate YouTube’s ad policies, and like we said given that they are edited into the videos directly, it does make it harder for YouTube to pick up on it which by then might have been too late. Unsurprisingly many creators have expressed their unhappiness with YouTube’s decision, with some claiming that they have lost months’ worth of video as a result.
They are also blaming YouTube for not communicating their policies more clearly on ads like these, in which YouTube has since responded by saying that they will be “working with creators going forward” to help them better understand what ads are acceptable and what are not.
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