YouTube bans ad revenue on ‘hateful content’

New ‘advertiser-friendly’ guidelines are intended to target such content

With several recent changes to YouTube's advertisement placement, Ariel Bardin, vice-president of product management, assured brands that the system is improving, most notably with updated "advertiser-friendly" guidelines that target creators of hateful content.

"We know that revenue fluctuations have been unsettling and want to reassure you that we're working closely with our advertising partners to make sure that YouTube continues to be a great place for creators to earn money," said Bardin.

There are now three categories of content that will no longer be eligible to earn revenue from ads: hateful content, videos with inappropriate use of family entertainment characters, and incendiary and demeaning content. While this type of content may not explicitly violate YouTube’s terms of service, it may, for example, use “gratuitously disrespectful language”, depict a popular cartoon character taking drugs or be designed to humiliate individuals based on their age, religion, nationality and so on.