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Comment by draw_down | Hacker News Reader

What does this actually mean, though? Advertisers are always free to spend or not spend their dollars as they see fit.

He probably meant, that Google should give more precise targeting options. For example, I want to spend my ad dollars on Youtube, but I might want to not advertise for example on extreme right-wing (or on cultural marxists, for that matter) videos.

If an advertiser doesn't want to reach viewers on the largest and most concentrated video market on Earth then that's their own internal problem they need to deal with.

This is the brave new world. The free-market of information is beginning to show its teeth for better or worse and those who shy away from it will lose market share.

Yeah but gp is talking about "flipping the bird to censorship", it isn't censorship to not buy ads. That just isn't what censorship is.

No, he isn't. He said the advertisers should decide what they spend money on, so Google doesn't have to care about what other people might consider offensive (i.e. 'flipping the bird to censorship')

Exactly. Google doesn't realize that it wields an incredible amount of power in this situation. If these guys don't advertise than someone else will. They will win, these idiots will lose.

Advertising is a surprisingly concentrated market, with five or six conglomerates making most of ads you see (WPP, Publicis, Mccain, etc.)

In fact this whole brewhaha was started because the current head of the WPP said he wanted Google to do something about his ads showing up next to extremist videos. It's not inconceivable the article on The Times that started it all was made as part of WPP's strategy to make Google kowtow to them on this subject.

Basically don't underestimate the power of advertising agencies. They can produce news cycles at will.

But most advertising (especially video) is not particularly well-measured, and all of the money is in the hands of the brands.

Philosophically, I agree with you, but I'm not sure if it really will work that way.

Yeah, but giving them more /fine-grained/ control might make them more likely to spend when they otherwise might not

I agree, give them all the control they need to keep their ads or content disassociated with the undesirable corners of the site but unless actual crimes are being committed we shouldn't have any videos being taken down for anything. Censorship of content on YouTube is the digital equivalent of burning books.

What content is actually being censored? Not displaying ads on a video does not mean the video is unavailable.

I thought we were talking about not showing ads on some videos, not takedowns?

I mean, sure, ok. Just don't see what that has to do with censorship

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