Google has announced it will be taking a “tougher stance on hateful, offensive and derogatory content” after it was revealed adverts for household brands had appeared before extremist videos on YouTube.
In a recent blog post, Google’s chief business officer Philipp Schindler apologised for the way content appeared, and said it was “unacceptable to the advertisers and agencies who put their trust in us”.
The actions to be taken will include “removing ads more effectively from content that is attacking or harassing people based on their race, religion, gender or similar categories”.
“I wanted to share that we’ve already begun ramping up changes around three areas: our ad policies, our enforcement of these policies and new controls for advertisers,” he wrote.
“That’s why we’ve been conducting an extensive review of our advertising policies and tools, and why we made a public commitment last week to put in place changes that would give brands more control over where their ads appear. Brand safety is an ongoing commitment for us, and we’ll continue to listen to your feedback.”
Google is preparing to introduce new tools for advertisers to enable them to more easily and consistently manage where their ads appear on YouTube and the web.
