YouTube Ad Debacle Continues: Creators Concerned About Falling Payments, Vevo says: “We’re Safe!”

A growing number of creators and musicians with popular videos on YouTube are worried about a drop in income thanks to a spreading boycott by major advertisers upset that their ads have been placed alongside controversial videos.

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“If you’re seeing fluctuations in your revenue over the next few weeks, it may be because we’re fine tuning our ads systems to address these concerns,” wrote YouTube in a community manager post to creators upset over falling revenue. 

But for some, the ad boycott has been even worse: no ads at all after they were mistakenly flagged as inappropriate. YouTube says they'll fix it. "If you think your video was demonetized in error, request an appeal by clicking on the yellow $ icon next to the video in Video Manager," reads another post from YouTube.

Vevo Pitches Advertisers

Meanwhile, music video channel Vevo is pitching advertisers that its platform, while part of YouTube, is controlled and safe. “I believe YouTube will take steps to address these issues. That said, we believe there is a safer way for brands to maximize their reach today, with the confidence of knowing who and what they’re aligned with,” Kevin McGurn, Vevo’s chief sales officer, wrote in a blog post. 

Vevo content is vetted through multiple layers of quality control to ensure the safest environment possible for advertisers including:

• Automatic categorization if the word “explicit” is in the title or content tags.
• Manual categorization if the content includes any of the following:
  
  • Vulgar language
  • Violence and disturbing imagery
  • Nudity and sexually suggestive content
  • Portrayal of harmful or dangerous activities