YouTube advertisers quit over predatory child videos

Several major companies have pulled their advertising from YouTube after their ads were shown on videos of young children that had attracted scores of comments from pedophiles.

The development comes just two days after YouTube announced a campaign to prevent inappropriate content and comments on its kids programming.

An investigation reported Friday by U.K.’s The Times found comments from hundreds of pedophiles posted on YouTube videos of scantily-clad children. Among the videos, most of which looked to have been uploaded by the children themselves, was a clip of of a pre-teen girl in a nightgown that had 6.5 million views, the Times said. The YouTube algorithm would then suggest other, similar videos, say of other children in bed or in baths.

Several big-name brands including food companies Mars (M&Ms, Snickers) and Mondelez (Oreos, Cadbury), Diageo (Guinness, Smirnoff vodka, Johnnie Walker scotch whisky), and German retail chain Lidl pulled their advertising from YouTube upon learning their ads ran alongside the videos, The Times first reported.

“We are shocked and appalled to see that our adverts have appeared alongside such exploitative and inappropriate content,” said Mars, the McLean, Va.-headquartered food maker said in a statement to USA TODAY.

YouTube reiterated its recent toughening of its guidelines for kids programming, noting in the past week it had disabled comments on “thousands of videos” that could be targeted by predators and shut down “hundreds of accounts” of users posting predatory comments.

“Content that endangers children is abhorrent and unacceptable to us,” the Google-owned company said in statement.