YouTube boycott

Big businesses such as AT&T and Volkswagen are pulling their advertisements from YouTube and other Google services after finding their brands appearing next to videos that promote hate and terrorism.

The growing boycott could cost Google hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising money. But Scott Kessler, an analyst at CFRA Research, believes Google will “successfully work through these issues.”

Google uses software to match ads with YouTube videos and various websites. The company says it will now hire “significant numbers” of employees to review “questionable content” and flag what’s inappropriate for ads.

Google already uses armies of contractors to check the work of its computer-generated search results. It recently started letting its reviewers flag search results as “upsetting” or “offensive.” While the company says this is done to improve the quality of its search results, an added bonus could be flagging websites that advertisers might not want to be associated with.