San Francisco - Two weeks into a YouTube advertising
boycott over hateful videos, Google is taking more steps to curb a crisis that
escalated further than the company anticipated.
Alphabet Inc.'s main division is introducing a new
system that lets outside firms verify ad quality standards on its video
service, while expanding its definitions of offensive content.
A slew of major marketers halted spending on YouTube
and Google's digital ad network after ads were highlighted running alongside
videos promoting hate, violence and racism. Google's initial response, a
promise of new controls for marketers, failed to stymie the boycott. The
crisis ignited a simmering debate in digital advertising over quality
assurance, or "brand safety," standards online.
Google has since improved its ability to flag offending
videos and immediately disable ads, Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler
told Bloomberg News in a recent interview. Johnson & Johnson, one of
largest advertisers to pull spending, said it is reversing its position in
most major markets.
Library
Since the boycott began, Google has allocated more
of its artificial intelligence tools to deciphering YouTube's enormous video
library. The company is a pioneer in the field and has used machine
learning, a powerful type of AI, to improve many of its products and services,
including video recommendation on YouTube and ad-serving.
Automatically classifying entire videos, then flagging
and filtering content is a more difficult, expensive research endeavour --
one that Google hasn't focused on much, until now.
Read also: LISTEN: YouTube's fight with internet's dark corners
"We switched to a completely new generation of our
latest and greatest machine-learning models," said Schindler. "We had
not deployed it to this problem, because it was a tiny, tiny problem. We have
limited resources."
In talks with big advertising clients, Google discovered
the toxic YouTube videos flagged in recent media reports represented about one
one-thousandth of a percent of total ads shown, Schindler said.
Still, with YouTube's size, that can add up quickly. And
the attention on the issue coincided with mounting industry pressure on Google,
the world's largest digital ad-seller, for more rigid measurement standards. A
frequent demand has been for Google to let other companies verify
standards on YouTube.
Google is allowing this now, creating a "brand
safety" reporting channel that lets YouTube ads be monitored by external
partners like comScore Inc. and Integral Ad Science Inc., according to a
company spokeswoman.
Google has made quick progress on its own, he said. Using
the new machine-learning tools, and "a lot more people,"
the company in the last two weeks flagged five times as many videos as
"non-safe," or disabled from ads, than before.
"But it's five [times] on the smallest denominator
you can imagine," Schindler said. "Although it has historically
it has been a very small, small problem. We can make it an even smaller,
smaller, smaller problem."
Vocal critics suggest Google has ignored this problem.
Some publishers and ad agencies have called on Google and rival Facebook Inc.
to more actively police the content they host online. In a speech last
week, Robert Thomson, Chief Executive Officer of News Corp., a frequent Google
critic, said the two digital companies "have prospered mightily by
peddling a flat earth philosophy that doesn't wish to distinguish between the
fake and real because they make copious amounts of money from both."
The YouTube ad boycott has pushed Google to beef up its
policing. In its initial response, Google expanded its definition of hate
speech to include marginalised groups. Now it's adding a new filter to disable
ads on "dangerous and derogatory content," the company said. That
includes language that promotes negative stereotypes about targeted groups or
denies "sensitive historical events" such as the Holocaust.
Some researchers argue digital platforms should rely on
humans to make these editorial decisions. Schindler said he has devoted more
manpower to oversee brand safety issues, but stressed that only machine
intelligence could contend with YouTube's size. "The problem
cannot be solved by humans and it shouldn't be solved by humans," he said.
Nor is the company willing to alter YouTube's fundamental
formula. Google lets any user upload videos and sets thresholds for which ones
can run ads. Tight restrictions on ads could cut funding for independent video
creators and step between advertisers and consumers, Schindler said. Google has
long pitched YouTube as a digital alternative to television for marketers,
making the video service one of its fastest growing sources of ad revenue.
"Cutting away the ability for brands to truly
interact with consumers by asking for one hundred percent safety is very, very,
very unrealistic," Schindler said.
The executive likened Google's ad business to an airline:
Each faces long-tail risk beyond its control. "Can I guarantee you if I
sell an airline ticket that the plane won't come down in the first million
miles?" he asked. "You can't guarantee it. You can just depress the
error rate to the lowest level."