NEW from @leonyin and @asankin: Last year YouTube’s CEO said Black lives matter. But we found that its ad portal makes it more difficult for advertisers to find social and racial justice videos by blocking keywords including Black Lives Matter. https://themarkup.org/google-the-giant/2021/04/09/google-blocks-advertisers-from-targeting-black-lives-matter-youtube-videos

Our investigation uncovered that Google Ads blocks dozens of terms associated with social and racial justice movements. Meanwhile, hundreds of millions of videos the platform suggested for hate-related terms were available for ad placements.

For example, Google Ads blocks ad targeting with “Black power,” a phrase associated with the African American civil rights movement, but offered more than 100 million YouTube videos and channels related to the White supremacist phrase “White power.”

The company responded by blocking the hate terms.

. @benandjerrys, a company with a history of publicly supporting social and racial justice movements, expressed concern about the blocklist, saying it’s like working “with one arm tied behind our back.”

These keyword blocklists could affect the advertising income of YouTube creators who focus on social justice issues like Black Lives Matter.

YouTube shares some of the ad revenue it collects with YouTubers who have signed up and whose videos the platform has deemed eligible for ads, and what YouTube collects is massive. Revenue from ads was nearly $20 billion in 2020 alone.

We found Google Ads blocked ad placement searches for Black Lives Matter, Muslim and Jewish parenting, Muslim fashion, and issues involving gender and sexuality. After we contacted the company, it extended blocks to other religions.

When we brought our findings to Google, the company doubled down: It blocked an additional 32 terms related to social and racial justice, including “civil rights,” “believe Black women,” “Black excellence,” and “queer.”

As we reported yesterday, Google responded to our investigation by changing the platform’s code to preclude future investigations. It is now unclear whether a keyword is blocked or there are simply no related videos on YouTube.

For a deeper look at precisely how @leonyin popped the hood on Google Ads, read the methodology here. Warning: This methodology contains many offensive terms. https://themarkup.org/google-the-giant/2021/04/09/how-we-discovered-googles-social-justice-blocklist-for-youtube-ad-placements