YouTube yet again responds about its NSFW ads issue

YouTube has been encountering NSFW ads-related issues for some time now, but the problem seems never-ending. Late last year there were several reports about YouTube users spotting NSFW ads on the platform to which Google responded via an official statement. The company then said it eventually removed such ads and took necessary action against the related advertisers’ accounts.

Although the tech giant insists that YouTube’s stringent moderation policy has been in place for years to prevent such ads, users have reported seeing them occasionally. Yesterday only, a Redditor reported encountering NSFW ads on YouTube. Now that the news has spread like wildfire, YouTube quickly responded regarding these ads once again.

YouTube responds to NSFW ads-related issue on the platform following a complaint from Redditor

The news comes via 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 the ads uploaded by the advertiser featured cropped porn. One of the Redditors who commented on ... thread said that the footage used on the specific NSFW ads was taken from one of the porn games.

When the news of the NSFW ad came to the limelight, YouTube was quick to respond to the publication. One of the spokespersons from the streaming platform stated “We have strict policies against ads with sexually explicit content. If we find any ads that violate this policy, we remove them.”

YouTube is using LLM to crack down on sketchy ads

The company pointed out that it blocked or removed a staggering 5.5 billion ads in 2023. Notably, this number is slightly above what it was in 2022. In the same year, YouTube also suspended over 12.7 million advertiser accounts, nearly double coming from 2022. It further blocked or removed over 94.6 million ads with NSFW content only in 2023. The company also says that large language models (LLM) have been helping it in its battle against NSFW ads.

Combating NSFW ads isn’t child’s play, especially when bad actors have some idea of bypassing YouTube’s moderation policy. But, YouTube is trying, and trying hard. However, one can’t deny that YouTube has to level up its content moderation game given its user base of billions, of which a large portion is underage audiences.