YouTube is one of the most famous video applications online and it has a massive user weightage and as much as people love it, there are certain things that the company needs to work towards. Previously a few months ago YouTube got into a mess when brands stopped featuring their ads on the YouTube videos, because a lot of brands found out that their videos were being shown on videos that can be deemed as offensive or consisted of terrorist content. After this YouTube managed to improve its moderation by adding more controls to help them manage the types of content their ads might run against and last month was when YouTube's brand safety processes received an accreditation from the Media Rating Council, an important ad industry stamp of approval.
However, while this was over for YouTube another claim opened up against the company. Lady Freethinker (LFT) which is a United States based nonprofit organization working towards exposing and preventing animal cruelty. The organization had sharp eyes on some of YouTube’s content which displayed staged animal rescue and attacks and the organization had been investigating this since April last year.
Freethinker claims that YouTube has been running ads from major advertisers like Disney+, Facebook's Portal, Land Rover, Lowe's, Amazon Prime Video, Dyson, Nationwide Pet, and Peloton on videos which displayed animal abuse. Cruelty according to the company was in this sense that many videos displayed animals being rescued from staged attacks of other animals like one video which Freethinker mentioned was showing domestic animals like puppies and kittens being "rescued" by a human from a dangerous attack from a snake or a crocodile. However, the NGO believes that such attacks and rescues dramas are documented and played while the animals are who appear in them are said to be under severe psychological distress, pain, or even death in one instance and while the NGO thinks such content should not be on the application having them monetized is another sad story.
Furthermore, on this Freethinker showed evidences of around 30 videos depicting animal torture present on the platform all of which were monetized and had millions of views. While some of the videos were taken down or deemed private the NGO still questions as to why the company had let such content be present on their application in the first place when it is against the company’s policy.
However, YouTube has assured the NGO and the public through an interview in the Times of London Newspaper that the company is working towards updating its policy and will be banning and removing any such video which depicts animal cruelty and shows staged rescue scenarios. A YouTube spokesperson has also confirmed that the company is working towards enforcing a new policy however before doing that they have to look under a lot of different matters and be thoughtful by consulting experts and take cultural nuances and differences into consideration, so that they can preserve free expression and equally keep their vibrant online community safe.
We sincerely hope the video giant takes actions against such videos quickly and makes sure no content in the future shows animals as a means of such harmful entertainment. Such acts are against the law and the YouTube should be more careful as to what it lets be displayed on its search engine.
Read next: YouTube tests a feature that will automatically detect products in videos and then make a list of it including other related products
However, while this was over for YouTube another claim opened up against the company. Lady Freethinker (LFT) which is a United States based nonprofit organization working towards exposing and preventing animal cruelty. The organization had sharp eyes on some of YouTube’s content which displayed staged animal rescue and attacks and the organization had been investigating this since April last year.
Freethinker claims that YouTube has been running ads from major advertisers like Disney+, Facebook's Portal, Land Rover, Lowe's, Amazon Prime Video, Dyson, Nationwide Pet, and Peloton on videos which displayed animal abuse. Cruelty according to the company was in this sense that many videos displayed animals being rescued from staged attacks of other animals like one video which Freethinker mentioned was showing domestic animals like puppies and kittens being "rescued" by a human from a dangerous attack from a snake or a crocodile. However, the NGO believes that such attacks and rescues dramas are documented and played while the animals are who appear in them are said to be under severe psychological distress, pain, or even death in one instance and while the NGO thinks such content should not be on the application having them monetized is another sad story.
Furthermore, on this Freethinker showed evidences of around 30 videos depicting animal torture present on the platform all of which were monetized and had millions of views. While some of the videos were taken down or deemed private the NGO still questions as to why the company had let such content be present on their application in the first place when it is against the company’s policy.
However, YouTube has assured the NGO and the public through an interview in the Times of London Newspaper that the company is working towards updating its policy and will be banning and removing any such video which depicts animal cruelty and shows staged rescue scenarios. A YouTube spokesperson has also confirmed that the company is working towards enforcing a new policy however before doing that they have to look under a lot of different matters and be thoughtful by consulting experts and take cultural nuances and differences into consideration, so that they can preserve free expression and equally keep their vibrant online community safe.
We sincerely hope the video giant takes actions against such videos quickly and makes sure no content in the future shows animals as a means of such harmful entertainment. Such acts are against the law and the YouTube should be more careful as to what it lets be displayed on its search engine.
Read next: YouTube tests a feature that will automatically detect products in videos and then make a list of it including other related products
