YouTube has been plagued by NSFW ad issues for a while now, but the problem seems to be never-ending. Late last year, there were several reports of YouTube users seeing NSFW ads on the platform, prompting Google to respond with an official statement. The company said at the time that it had eventually removed such ads and taken appropriate action against the accounts of the advertisers in question.
While the tech giant maintains that YouTube’s strict moderation policies have been in place for years to prevent such ads, users have reported seeing them occasionally. Yesterday, a Redditor reported encountering NSFW ads on YouTube. With the news spreading like wildfire, YouTube was quick to crack down on the ads once again.
YouTube responds to NSFW ad issue on the platform after Redditor complaint
The news comes from Android Authority, which reported that a Redditor (@Academic_Yak2513) came across two NSFW ads for a hentai game on YouTube while browsing Shorts. The user notes that both ads uploaded by the advertiser contain cropped porn. One of the Redditors commenting on the post thread said that the images used in the specific NSFW ads were taken from one of the porn games.
When news of the NSFW ad came into the spotlight, YouTube react fast to the publication. One of the spokespersons for the streaming platform stated: “We have a strict policy against ads with sexually explicit content. If we find ads that violate this policy, we will remove them.”
YouTube uses LLM to tackle dubious ads
The company noted that it blocked or removed a whopping 5.5 billion ads in 2023. Notably, that number is slightly higher than in 2022. In the same year, YouTube also suspended more than 12.7 million advertiser accounts, nearly double the number in 2022. It also blocked or removed more than 94.6 million ads containing only NSFW content in 2023. The company also says that large language models (LLM) have helped it in the fight against NSFW ads.
Combating NSFW ads is no easy feat, especially when bad actors have the idea of circumventing YouTube’s moderation policies. But YouTube is trying, and trying hard. There’s no denying, however, that YouTube needs to up its content moderation game, given its user base of billions, a large portion of which is made up of underage audiences.
