"We took immediate action by deleting accounts and channels, reporting illegal activity to authorities and disabling violative comments. YouTuber's humorously refer to these advertising bans as " adpocalypse."Īs far as what YouTube plans to do about the situation, a spokesperson had this to say: Another uproar resulted after PewDiePie posted a video that contained some anti-Semitic imagery. Similar movements happened when media outlets exposed terrorism and hate-filled content posted on the site. It is also not the first time such an ad boycott has occurred. Wired notes that stationary bike maker Peloton "was working with its media buying agency to investigate why its adverts were being displayed against such videos." Several other companies have halted marketing efforts on YouTube over the mess. "I can consistently get access to it from vanilla, never-before-used YouTube accounts via innocuous videos in less than ten minutes, in sometimes less than five clicks."Įpic is not the only advertiser that has pulled ads. "YouTube's recommended algorithm is facilitating pedophiles' ability to connect with each-other, trade contact info, and link to actual child pornography in the comments," said Watson. In the comments, you can find where predators have left timestamps to parts of the videos that "sexualize" the children. While the videos are not pornographic, they may feature children dressed in swimwear in displaying suggestive poses.
Watson explained that a search for something like "bikini haul," which is where female YouTubers show various bikinis they have purchased, can lead to related "exploitative" videos of children. He calls it a "wormhole into a soft-core pedophilia ring on YouTube." Former YouTube content creator Matt Watson exposed the problem. The controversy stems from the discovery that certain videos on YouTube that target or feature children have been subjected to predatory comments. "Through our advertising agency, we have reached out to Google/YouTube to determine actions they'll take to eliminate this type of content from their service." "We have paused all pre-roll advertising," a spokesperson for Epic told The Verge. On Wednesday, it announced it was halting Fortnite ads on the platform until YouTube addresses the problem. The videos themselves are not necessarily against the terms of service, but predators are using them to organize with once another and share links to child pornography.Įpic is one of several companies to take action against the content. On Tuesday, it was learned that some YouTube content was being used by pedophiles in an exploitative manner. Epic became aware that some of the content is being used by child predators to exploit children. Pre-roll ads are the short commercials (often skippable) that play before videos. A hot potato: Following a child predator controversy on YouTube, Epic has decided to pull its Fortnite pre-roll ads it was showing.