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Honestly, I don't understand what the issue is. I actually appreciate it that YouTube seems to suppress ads that target political topics (even if the blocklist

Honestly, I don't understand what the issue is. I actually appreciate it that YouTube seems to suppress ads that target political topics (even if the blocklist is still incomplete / unbalanced). We already have enough political ads on Facebook; we don't need them on YouTube, too.

minikites 6y ago
Weird how it only seems to affect one side of political spectrum though. I'm sure it's just a coincidence.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- krapp 6y ago
  It's not weird if you consider that Google's primary motive is to make their platform attractive to advertisers and first-party rightsholders, and thus maximize revenue, rather than to spread social justice activism. It's always been the case that left-wing, LGBT and other non-traditionally mainstream content is considered a greater risk for advertisers than right-wing content.
suifbwish 6y ago
I really hope that’s sarcasm.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
dan-robertson 6y ago
Isn’t the solution to reducing political advertising to ban political ads like Twitter did, rather than binning targeting ads to political topics? Most political ads seem to targeted towards general locations anyway.
- busterarm 6y ago
  Banning political ads on twitter is like sticking your finger in a collapsed dam. 99% of twitter usage is journalists covering politics and political activism. The other vertical on Twitter is celebrities and they mostly have switched over to Instagram content.
rozab 6y ago
Is being gay political?
- krapp 6y ago
  Unfortunately, to many people it is. Or at least being openly gay.
danso 6y ago
I think the issue is that the policy is unevenly applied, and Google's response to it was to obfuscate what little transparency there is in the process: > Further, all social justice keywords on list we used that included the word Muslim were blocked for ad placement searches, including such innocuous phrases as “Muslim fashion” and “Muslim parenting.” Their counterparts, “Christian fashion” and “Christian parenting,” were not blocked when we checked in November—nor were the anti-Muslim hate phrases “White sharia” and “civilization jihad.”
- zepto 6y ago
  The problem is that we don’t know if it is unevenly applied because we don’t know how often those unblocked terms are actually used. The article does a bunch of interesting investigation and quantification but the only point it actually makes is based purely on innuendo.
pocket_cheese 6y ago
There are a lot of terms they mentioned that aren't political though. Blocking terms like "Muslim Fashion" doesn't seem defensible. > actually appreciate it that YouTube seems to suppress ads that target political topics I think that youtube should be suppressing shitty adds, not potentially decisive content. The way they are currently handling the situation signals to creators from marginalized groups that they should not talk about substantive issues if they want to get paid. This is disheartening as it is ironic because Google (and literally every other mega corporation) tries to posture themselves as being socially conscious, but as soon as people want to talk about injustice or inequality, they are essentially soft-deplatformed. > even if the blocklist is still incomplete I might be a little cynical, but I feel like it is complete because it's working the way they want it to. The one-sidedness of the blacklist doesn't tell me that google is discriminatory. It tells me that the companies buying ads are discriminatory, and google changes their policies to make them happy. Google's tacit acceptance of prejudice tells me everything I need to know about their principals.
- codethief 6y ago
  > The one-sidedness of the blacklist doesn't tell me that google is discriminatory. It tells me that the companies buying ads are discriminatory, Yes, that's my preliminary conclusion, too. > and google changes their policies to make them happy. Or Google changes its policies to prevent abuse, and abuse just so happened to occur more frequently with some search terms than with others.

minikites 6y ago

Weird how it only seems to affect one side of political spectrum though. I'm sure it's just a coincidence.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
krapp 6y ago
It's not weird if you consider that Google's primary motive is to make their platform attractive to advertisers and first-party rightsholders, and thus maximize revenue, rather than to spread social justice activism. It's always been the case that left-wing, LGBT and other non-traditionally mainstream content is considered a greater risk for advertisers than right-wing content.

suifbwish 6y ago

I really hope that’s sarcasm.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

dan-robertson 6y ago

Isn’t the solution to reducing political advertising to ban political ads like Twitter did, rather than binning targeting ads to political topics? Most political ads seem to targeted towards general locations anyway.

busterarm 6y ago
Banning political ads on twitter is like sticking your finger in a collapsed dam. 99% of twitter usage is journalists covering politics and political activism. The other vertical on Twitter is celebrities and they mostly have switched over to Instagram content.

rozab 6y ago

Is being gay political?

krapp 6y ago
Unfortunately, to many people it is. Or at least being openly gay.

danso 6y ago

I think the issue is that the policy is unevenly applied, and Google's response to it was to obfuscate what little transparency there is in the process: > Further, all social justice keywords on list we used that included the word Muslim were blocked for ad placement searches, including such innocuous phrases as “Muslim fashion” and “Muslim parenting.” Their counterparts, “Christian fashion” and “Christian parenting,” were not blocked when we checked in November—nor were the anti-Muslim hate phrases “White sharia” and “civilization jihad.”

zepto 6y ago
The problem is that we don’t know if it is unevenly applied because we don’t know how often those unblocked terms are actually used. The article does a bunch of interesting investigation and quantification but the only point it actually makes is based purely on innuendo.

pocket_cheese 6y ago

There are a lot of terms they mentioned that aren't political though. Blocking terms like "Muslim Fashion" doesn't seem defensible. > actually appreciate it that YouTube seems to suppress ads that target political topics I think that youtube should be suppressing shitty adds, not potentially decisive content. The way they are currently handling the situation signals to creators from marginalized groups that they should not talk about substantive issues if they want to get paid. This is disheartening as it is ironic because Google (and literally every other mega corporation) tries to posture themselves as being socially conscious, but as soon as people want to talk about injustice or inequality, they are essentially soft-deplatformed. > even if the blocklist is still incomplete I might be a little cynical, but I feel like it is complete because it's working the way they want it to. The one-sidedness of the blacklist doesn't tell me that google is discriminatory. It tells me that the companies buying ads are discriminatory, and google changes their policies to make them happy. Google's tacit acceptance of prejudice tells me everything I need to know about their principals.

codethief 6y ago
> The one-sidedness of the blacklist doesn't tell me that google is discriminatory. It tells me that the companies buying ads are discriminatory, Yes, that's my preliminary conclusion, too. > and google changes their policies to make them happy. Or Google changes its policies to prevent abuse, and abuse just so happened to occur more frequently with some search terms than with others.