Google says it has blocked several terms associated with hate speech from being used as ad keywords on YouTube videos.
The move follows a report by The Markup, which found that advertisers could search for terms like “white lives matter” and “white power” when deciding where to place ads on YouTube:
Google offered advertisers hundreds of millions of choices for YouTube videos and channels related to White supremacist and other hate terms when we began our investigation, including “all lives matter”—a phrase frequently used as a dismissive rejoinder to Black Lives Matter—and “White lives matter”—which the Southern Poverty Law Center describes as both a neo-Nazi group and “a racist response to the civil rights movement Black Lives Matter.”
At the same time, The Markup found, Google was blocking advertisers from using terms such as “Black Lives Matter” to find videos and channels to run ads against. After The Markup reached out to YouTube parent company Google for comment, it says the company actually blocked more racial and social justice terms, including “Black excellence” and “civil rights.”
“We take the issue of hate and harassment very seriously and condemn it in the strongest terms possible,” a Google spokesperson said in an email to The Verge. “Though no ads ever ran against this content on YouTube, because our multi-layered enforcement strategy worked during this investigation, we fully acknowledge that the terms identified are offensive and harmful and should not have been searchable. Our teams have addressed the issue and blocked terms that violate our enforcement policies. We will continue to be vigilant in this regard.”
