Google apologises to advertisers for extremist content on YouTube（407 words）

By Madhumita Murgia and David Bond

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Google’s European operations boss has publicly apologised to its advertisers after a growing crisis over extremist content on YouTube led big companies such as Marks and Spencer and Havas to freeze their Google ads.

Speaking at the Advertising Week Europe conference in London, Matt Brittin, Google’s president of business and operations in the region, said: “We apologise. Whenever anything like that happens, we don’t want it to happen and we take responsibility for it.”

Despite the public apology, he repeatedly refused to answer questions on whether Google would start proactively policing content on its platforms.

Last week, a Times investigation revealed that ads sponsored by the UK government, as well as companies such as Sainsbury’s and L’Oréal, were displayed alongside inappropriate content on YouTube.

These included videos filmed by American white nationalist David Duke, banned Egyptian preacher Wagdy Ghoneim and fundamentalist Christian pastor Steven Anderson, who has praised the murder of gay people.

Mr Brittin was sharing the stage on Monday with Keith Weed, chief marketing officer of Unilever, one of Google’s biggest ad spenders globally.

Mr Weed said that while it was right that technology groups such as Google and Facebook were being held to account, the whole advertising industry needed to take action. “We need to smarten up,” he said.

Google said it would make changes to its ad policies, as well as how it controls and enforces appropriate advertising on its platforms.

Specifically, Google pledged it would exercise more control over where ads were placed and be better at reviewing questionable content. Further details were expected later this week.

Currently, Google only reviews content that is flagged as inappropriate by its users. It cites the huge volume of video uploaded on to YouTube — 400 hours every minute — as the reason why it does not police all the content on its platforms proactively.

About 98 per cent of content flagged on YouTube is reviewed within 24 hours, according to Google. “We know we can do even more here,” Mr Brittin said, adding that Google was investing in new ways to handle complaints faster.

Mr Brittin also said Google was looking to modify the controls it gave to advertisers and agencies, making it easier and simpler for companies to control exactly where their ads appeared.

Google also plans to rewrite its policies on videos and sites allowed for advertising, for example by raising the bar for videos considered to contain incendiary commentary and hate speech.