Left-leaning YouTube personality David Pakman has claimed that the ongoing boycott of the platform by major advertisers, which is projected to cost parent company Google hundreds of millions of dollars, is “hitting progressive news channels the most.”
In an article for The Huffington Post, Pakman said it has become difficult to discuss certain topics on YouTube, and that progressive news channels were most affected.
Videos about ISIS or Syria get demonetized, even though they are news stories, but online commentators have also been affected just for discussing these topics.
This issue seems to be hitting progressive news channels the most, which makes it even more of a problem: these channels are able to stay afloat through paid memberships, but also greatly depend on ad revenue to produce more content.
However, Pakman does not explain why this would not hurt conservative and libertarian news and commentary channels, which also discuss potentially sensitive topics, and are often baselessly accused of “hate speech” by the left.
YouTube and its parent company Google have been embroiled in controversy over the past few weeks, following investigative reports in The Times of London and The Wall Street Journal showing that ads from major brands were appearing alongside extremist content and “hate speech” on the platform.
In the wake of these stories, global brands and advertising agencies began a massive pullout from YouTube, while the British Parliament hauled Google before one of its committees to answer questions about terrorist, extremist, and “hateful” content on its platform.
In addition to the reported development of artificial intelligence that “knows how to be offended” in order to spot objectionable content on YouTube, Google also gave brands and agencies more tools to decide where their adverts appear.
Since then, advertising revenue for YouTube creators, including well-established channels that do not produce “hateful” or extremist content, has been plunging.
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