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YouTube blocked advertisers from finding videos related to "Black Lives Matter," but not "White Lives Matter."
https://themarkup.org/google-the-giant/2021/04/09/google-blocks-advertisers-from-targeting-black-lives-matter-youtube-videos
https://themarkup.org/google-the-giant/2021/04/09/google-blocks-advertisers-from-targeting-black-lives-matter-youtube-videos
In part 2 of @themarkup's investigation into YouTube's secret blocklist, @asankin and I report on YouTube's treatment social and racial justice keywords.
https://themarkup.org/google-the-giant/2021/04/09/google-blocks-advertisers-from-targeting-black-lives-matter-youtube-videos
https://themarkup.org/google-the-giant/2021/04/09/google-blocks-advertisers-from-targeting-black-lives-matter-youtube-videos
Despite pledging $100M to help Black creators and doing more to, "dismantle systemic racism," YouTube's blocklist upholds systematic racism by blocking racial justice terms, while letting virulently racist terms through.
That quote was pulled from YouTube CEO Susan Wojicki's 2020 mid-year update. Attached is a clip from the blog post: https://blog.youtube/inside-youtube/susan-wojcicki-my-mid-year-update-youtube-community
Brandi Collins-Dexter ( @BrandingBrandi) said this glimpse into how Google manages its platform suggests the company’s investments in building relationships with civil rights communities are “a lot of lip-service.” https://themarkup.org/google-the-giant/2021/04/09/google-blocks-advertisers-from-targeting-black-lives-matter-youtube-videos
Google refused to answer a single question related to its social or racial justice blocks. Rather than unblock terms, YouTube doubled down and blocked terms like, "black excellence" and "antiracism." More here:
https://themarkup.org/google-the-giant/2021/04/09/how-we-discovered-googles-social-justice-blocklist-for-youtube-ad-placements
https://themarkup.org/google-the-giant/2021/04/09/how-we-discovered-googles-social-justice-blocklist-for-youtube-ad-placements
See part one of our investigation into YouTube's keyword blocklist for ad buyers here + thread:
https://themarkup.org/google-the-giant/2021/04/08/google-youtube-hate-videos-ad-keywords-blocklist-failures https://twitter.com/LeonYin/status/1380171708670345217
https://themarkup.org/google-the-giant/2021/04/08/google-youtube-hate-videos-ad-keywords-blocklist-failures https://twitter.com/LeonYin/status/1380171708670345217
More details in this thread from my co-author @ASankin: https://twitter.com/ASankin/status/1380542406114820098
All of our data and code is open source. Check out the carefully documented GitHub repo. https://github.com/the-markup/investigation-youtube-ad-placements
