YouTube reportedly is considering shifting all children’s content on its platform over to its YouTube Kids app, a move that would be in response to recent criticism of YouTube’s handling of offensive content on its site.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the company also internally is discussing turning off the autoplay feature, which starts up another video as soon as the current video concludes, on children’s content. As the report points out, moving children’s content off the primary YouTube app and disabling autoplay features could both have negative impacts on advertising revenue.
As the report points out, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki internally admitted to mishandling recent decisions regarding hate speech, conspiracy theories and other potentially harmful content on the site. Google CEO Sundar Pichai reportedly took more of a hands-on role at YouTube amid the recent controversies.
RELATED: YouTube accounts for 35% of worldwide mobile internet traffic, Sandvine says
YouTube, of course, is a massive platform for video. According to Sandvine’s recent Mobile Phenomena report, YouTube accounts for 35% of all global mobile internet traffic. That puts the user-generated video platform far ahead of Netflix, which accounts for 15%.
YouTube is largely fueled by massive amounts of user-generated content from its creator community. But, some of that content has run afoul of advertisers who wish to not associate their brands with offensive or dangerous content.
The Google-owned company has taken steps to ensure brand safety on its platform. Late last year, the company expanded its agreement with DoubleVerify, an independent provider of marketing measurement software and analytics. That agreement allows advertisers to use DoubleVerify’s third-party verification methodology that provides insights into the appropriateness of the media on which their video campaigns are running. The company’s Brand Safety and Suitability controls are broken out into 11 categories, including violence, hate speech and pornography. Advertisers can opt into 10 additional Brand Targeting categories, such as pets, automotive and travel—based on relevance to the brand.