The method in which Google is allowing advertising in youtube has spurred as a controversial issue recently. It seems that advertisements on youtube are random, but this is a problem. Companies pay Google to advertise their products by putting an advertisements before the beginning of a video that a user has clicked on. This, by itself, doesn’t seem problematic because advertises can they target a large group of people. The problem arises when an advertisement is placed before a controversial video. Advertisements might be placed on videos explaining the one sided view of a person or before a terrorist video placed online. There is obviously no association between the advertisements and the video, but people watching the video may not perceive the information in that way.
The fact that advertisements can be put before any video is making companies uncomfortable. The companies that are funding Google could potentially be seen by the public as companies that support terrorism or other topics that give companies bad reputations. As a result, companies may start thinking that Google ads are not as advantages as previously thought. Google has now implemented policies for advertisements and video. This means that videos and the advertisements that go with them have certain restriction. But even with theses policies, Google has admitted that due to the large quantities of videos being shared they don’t always get it right. Google tries to put advertisements with appropriate content. These means that Google tries to take an ethical approach on how they deal with video. Google categories video on how appropriate they are and try to model their policies so that appropriate content is encouraged. They also block content that they deem as inappropriate. There is some policies at Google that try to follow an ethical guideline, but , from the perspective of the users and advertisement agencies, this is not always very clear. As a result, not everyone support Google’s advertisements and video polices and want them to work harder to censor or address strong issues. The way that Google manages their video and ads is problematic, but are their any ethical issues involved? The answer to the question is yes, because Google seems to be ignoring some issues while addressing others. This means that Google is censoring certain information that they don’t think is import. According to the article, “'I can’t trust YouTube any more': creators speak out in Google advertising row,” Google is not addressing issues with terrorism and are more focused on dealing with issues that involve gender inequality because their CEO is a feminist. The author of the article may not be completely correct about the way he perceives the Google CEO, but if Google is selectively censoring controversial issues, then there is an ethical problem. Ultimately, it seems that Google is trying to censor inappropriate content by following a moral guideline, but they make mistakes due to the large quantities of videos posted online. Due to this, advertisement agencies feel that they can no longer trust google since they believe what they are doing isn’t completely ethical.
18 Comments
5/14/2017 02:29:31 pm
I've heard a lot about the sort of discrimination that content creators on YouTube face, from those content creators that are being punished for having "questionable content" such as horror stories, or true crime stories. While it may be bad for those content creators themselves, advertisers still have the right to choose how and where their products are advertised, and I don't see fault in advertisers not wanting their products, however tangentially, associated with those controversial subjects.
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Salvador Ramirez
5/15/2017 09:24:11 pm
Hello Emily,
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Adrienne Horca
5/16/2017 12:42:38 pm
Emily and Salvador,
Gabriel Zapata
5/14/2017 08:01:00 pm
Hello Sal,
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Salvador Ramirez
5/16/2017 06:46:44 pm
Hello Gabriel,
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Eliasar Gandara
5/16/2017 06:56:31 pm
Hello,
Cristina Cachux
5/14/2017 09:15:45 pm
It seems that this would cause users, which is a huge base of people, to think of the reputation of Google. Given the fact that the advertisements are very one sided and clearly there to change the beliefs of users, I do not see how they could even be allowed. I would say advertisements should be better filtered before letting them air to the public. I wonder what exactly is the screening process for ads to be allowed on YouTube.
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Salvador Ramirez
5/16/2017 06:42:06 pm
Hello Cristina,
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5/16/2017 09:59:11 am
Hello Salvador,
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Salvador Ramirez
5/16/2017 06:53:00 pm
Hello Cody,
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Eliasar Gandara
5/16/2017 06:53:05 pm
Hello Sal,
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Alan Garcia
5/18/2017 02:47:52 pm
23
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Shaikh Sultani
5/18/2017 10:05:37 pm
I never knew about how ads were shown to people, especially with one that might be placed on a terrorist video with no correlation to the ad. But i guess it would be hard for people like google or youtube to be able to police their entire site and have to go through each video and ad one by one. But it is something that should be improved upon
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Pearce Reinsch
5/19/2017 08:00:22 pm
I think that in this situation Google will catch some flak no matter which action they go with. I think they have done well in the position they are in, but you are right that they should not be focusing on just one topic and should have some sort of overall flagging system in place for all controversial topics.
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Jose Cortez
5/19/2017 09:30:42 pm
I also agree that there is no side that google can take that will please everyone, however I think that they should always try to back their creators as much as possible since they are what keeps people coming back in the first place.
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Jose Cortez
5/19/2017 09:28:41 pm
I'm glad someone brought this up, youtube is one of my favorite websites and I have been hearing a lot about the recent advertisement changes and how it is hurting creators. I believe that youtube can only do so much when it comes to placing their advertisements on "family friendly" content. If they keep adding restrictions it will only continue to damage creators.
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Christian Martinez
5/19/2017 09:32:17 pm
I heard about this Jose. Many content creators are actually moving toward other platforms because this advertisement is hurting them too much financially. People have become streamers on Twitch instead to keep their money situations a float.
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Jose Cortez
5/19/2017 09:34:40 pm
That makes sense, unfortunately I don't think Twitch is for everyone and there will be some creators that will not be able to move to another platform even if they wanted to. Youtube has no real competition at this point so they are not under any pressure to change their guidelines. Leave a Reply. |
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