YouTube, owned by Google’s parent company Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL), plans to dedicate more people to help weed out extremist content from the video sharing website.
Several brands have pulled advertising from YouTube this year after extremist, violent and disturbing videos and comments appeared alongside their ads.
READ: Google apologises to clients over extremist content after M&S becomes latest brand to pull ads
In November, confectionary maker Mondelez (NASDAQ:MDLZ), Lidl, Mars and other consumer goods producers joined the boycott after The Times newspaper found YouTube was showing clips of scantily clad children in conjunction with the ads major brands.
In an effort to tackle the issue, YouTube has developed software to identify videos linked to extremism. It is now trying to do the same with clips that portray hate speech or are unsuitable for children. Vidoes flagged by the software could lead to the uploader becoming ineligible for generating ad revenue.
However, YouTube has received criticism from video uploaders that the software is flawed.
YouTube employs more content reviewers
YouTube chief executive Susan Wojcicki revealed in a blog post on Monday that Google plans to bring the total number of people working to review content to more than 10,000 in 2018.
She said adding more people to identify inappropriate content will provide more data to supply and potentially improve its machine learning software.
“We need an approach that does a better job determining which channels and videos should be eligible for advertising,” she said.
“We’ve heard loud and clear from creators that we have to be more accurate when it comes to reviewing content, so we don’t demonetise videos by mistake.”
Sharing an important update about how we're expanding our work against abuse of @YouTube: https://t.co/DNbq8L5ueU
— Susan Wojcicki (@SusanWojcicki) 5 December 2017
I also wrote to creators outlining how we're working to do all we can to protect the community, to counter threats from bad actors and to ensure that YouTube remains a place where all creators can thrive: https://t.co/wPH0Q73xOn
— Susan Wojcicki (@SusanWojcicki) 5 December 2017
'Agressive action'
Wojcicki said the company would take “aggressive action” by launching new comment moderation tools. In some cases the group will shut down comments altogether, she said.
“Our teams also work closely with NCMEC(National Center for Missing and Exploited Children), the IWF (Internet Watch Foundation), and other child safety organisations around the world to report predatory behavior and accounts to the correct law enforcement agencies.
Google earlier this year announced that it would give £1mln to fund projects that tackle extremism in the UK.
In June YouTube announced that it would take steps to address the problem by improving its use of machine learning to remove controversial videos and by working with 15 new expert groups, including the No Hate Speech Movement, the Anti-Defamation League and the Institute for Strategic Dialogue.
At the time YouTube also said it was developing a way to redirect users searching specific keywords on the website to playlists featuring videos that counter extremist content.