Dive Brief:
- Google's U.K. division announced it will ramp up security by hiring more employees after several large companies complained about their ads being run within offensive videos located on YouTube and other channels, reports Reuters.
- Allegedly, the videos contained references to anti-Semitic and homophobic content. Google plans to hire "significantly more staff” aimed at focusing on monitoring the more than 400 hours of video that’s uploaded to YouTube every minute. They also plan to speed up processes to remove ads from offensive content.
- Meanwhile, YouTube is updating its policies to reduce the placement of ads near potentially offensive videos, giving more control to advertisers. Philipp Schindler, Google's CBO, said in a blog post that he believes these changes will help advertisers reach their target audiences more accurately and prevent ads from being run near offensive content.
Dive Insight:
Though it's been put in a difficult situation, this is the perfect opportunity for Google to begin the process of recruiting and training entry-level graduates to work specifically on advertisement security and compliance tasks.
On the other hand, this case study is a potent reminder to companies that use online advertisements for recruitment purposes; they may want to have a specialist who is skilled at monitoring and correcting advertisement issues on hand in order avoid any discriminatory claims that could result.
Facebook, for example, faced backlash for job and housing ads hosted on its site that some deemed discriminatory. The ads allowed posters to essentially choose from a check box the demographic groups who were excluded from seeing a given listing.
