also js but pairing 'sex' with 'sexuality' is a bit shitty because it's grouping anything to do with sexuality which includes the wholesome and great and loving lgbt community on RU-vid with porn and explicit content. Like your only option for not showing sexual content is to also bar any lgbt related stuff too.
Right?! I hate that it's a thing people have to block because there's probably some really good, well-intentioned, ads for sexual health services and sexual education (I know I've seen plenty of Planned Parenthood ads, for example) but conservative scumbags ruined it for them.
Another factor in this might be the nationality of the creator compared to the nationality of their viewer. I have never seen a youtube ad for pragar U, anti-gay christians, or the nra, but I'm British and I suspect those organisations are targeting their ads at Americans. That means that if you're a non-US creator, you don't have the option of seeing the ad yourself and clicking it to see where it goes and the blocking that URL, because you'll probably never get the ads which your US audience is being targed with.
I've never seen the anti-gay ads. I suspect RU-vid/Google knows I'm not about to fall for that shit (I'm very happy with my sexuality as a gay man), but I have seen Pragar U ads. I've clicked on the ads and went to the videos to dislike it because it pissed me off. I wonder if that's one of their marketing tactics.
Cinichecuk be careful about doing that. I heard from someone on youtube that interacting with their ads or posts in anyway (including disliking) can actually help them because it proves you are Interacting with their videos.
and let me say, it's absolutely absurd that MCNs only have the ability to make CMS wide changes to these ad policies. Same thing with content ID whitelisting, no idea why they don't make it more granular.
AlexTGG Holy shit! I kinda just assumed it was Hank. This is so awesome! And that was so fast!!! Way to go you! You definitely did not forget to be awesome today!
I think just those words without context could be an unhelpful message. It could make people more likely to feel like giving up. I think variations of "the world sucks and it's not our fault it's like this but there are things we can do to fight the worldsuck, especially if we work together" is more the message we need. That's not a catchy slogan, but I think we need catchy slogans with that message more than we need to imply this state of the world just "is" and the best we can do is apologise.
Hank is suffering and when Hank suffers, we suffer. Please donate to stop the needless abuse of Hanks by *mercilessly messaging youtube about this issue.*
Also, if enough people can donate through patreon to lgbtq+ content creators being hit hardest by demonitization and homophobic ads, they may be able to turn RU-vid ads off entirely.
That would work for most but not all people. You loose control of your ads by removing monetization, so all the blocked ads are allowed to come back in if you have any copyrighted content in your videos. This revolves around the categories problem.
I posted this on your last video about RU-vid ads and I really want to make sure you see this because, Hank, I've watched you and John since I was nine years old, and I'm almost twenty now. You both have helped shape my worldview and helped make me into a more thoughtful and understanding human being. This is not by far the only video you've produced that was won my respect, but it's your consistent, unbridled, radical compassion that makes me proud to have essentially grown up as a nerdfighter. And while I'm not really a content creator myself, I appreciate on behalf of those that are that you posted this guide. You weren't just upset, you did something with that frustration and put it to good use. That's something I've always admired about you and have learned through you to try and implement to my own life. Thank you for everything you do.
@Starpasta/@Dean thank you guys! We love making content, but being censored and beaten down every week with yellow marks and sometimes age restrictions is getting incredibly tiring. Switching platforms feels like the only way to properly produce and share content, but we'll see ❤
Wow. The righteous anger Hank was giving off was very cool. Like someone is fighting on behalf of those smaller lgbt voices on the platform (and of course this inconveniences Hank as well but yeah) thanks for this video.
If i was gay and saw an anti gay ad, I'd be laughing, ridiculing it and shaking my head. You're just giving gays a bad image of being victims Hank. You're giving merit to the homophobes who say gays are oversensitive children who can't take a joke. If you think the ads are ridiculous, then make a video ridiculing them. That would be FAR more effective than just blocking them. But no, make several videos ranting on the terrible apocalypse that is getting anti-gay ads in the world - yeah that'll make things better.
He's specifically upset about (young) people who are questioning, which is a stressful time not helped by anti-gay rhetoric, rather than gays who are secure in their sexuality.
Your rational rage is giving me strength in tough times. Afterthought, Hank, have either you or John ever told people how they can submit feedback to RU-vid through its forms on the app and website? Recommending people do so may be a good idea.
It's not about pride month, it's about a 6 year old case that was decided in the supreme court this week that said a baker not wanting to bake a cake for a gay wedding because his religion is against gay marriage has the right to do that, kinda. Mostly the decision just says that the government has to respect people's religious beliefs but businesses still have to be tolerant.
mynameismatt2010 I know. It's religious freedom bullshit. I read the news. Though I'm seriously regretting doing so, it's depressing. I was just being snarky, not a big surprise, it is the RU-vid comment section. P.s I don't know what time it is where you are, but seriously man?
It's not really depressing, it was the only logical choice they could have come to. It's as if they said "Lets make the ruling that makes sense, but word our decision in such a way that this doesn't set a precedent of bigotry in the name of religion" I think it was handled as well as could be expected.
mynameismatt2010 I don't mean that story specifically. But if the baker refused to bake a wedding cake for an interacial couple there would of been a different rulling.
Because there is no legitimate basis for any legally recognized religion to have an issue with interracial marriages. If it were the case that the mans legitimate religious beliefs were that people of different colors should not be married he would have a legal ground to stand on. It's like if we lived in a world where going somewhere to get your makeup done every day was a normal thing, and there was a religious make up artist who refused to do the make up of a prostitute. From talking about this with most other people they seem to think there's a difference between the two situations, but legally there really isn't. Once you take out the "protected class" status and remove the emotionally charged buzzwords of "gay marriage" it's a pretty mundane cut and dry case.
Big thumbs up for trying to get rid of PragerU ads, they are so frustrating. It’s racism and hate under a cloak and dagger. I’ve complained about those guys a couple times and I’m honestly floored that you either heard my complaints and others or saw them yourself and wanted to do something about them
I'll be honest, 70% of the reason I pay for RU-vid Red is that I just can't go back to watching all of the asinine ads. Is it worth $10 a month? Probably not, but I can't go back, I've seen the other side and now the idea of watching ads on RU-vid makes me sick. I'm not saying people should get RU-vid Red, it's probably not worth it, but if you really hate ads, know there is an escape.
I picked YTRed up because I was already paying $10/month for ad free spotify, then I realized Google Play plus RU-vid Red was the same price. Seriously awesome deal. Not having to deal with the ads in the two main ways I get my entertainment is SO worth it.
As far as I know there is no way to use ad block on mobile, and there's the other 30% of the reason which is that background play allows me to listen to music at work without having to have my phone open and burning battery in my pocket.
ytred is dope for downloading youtube videos to watch on my daily commute via public transit where I don't have internet access and don't want to waste all my data, plus it seems(??) like it can sometimes give sliiiiightly more money to the creators i follow a lot vs this super unreliable ad system. So I do think it is still worth it for those reasons plus thank god no ads.
I think Hank actually did a video a while back on YTRed, and I believe I do remember him mentioning that creators get more per view from YTRed than ads.
Really glad to see that you block ads from PragerU and hear you speak out against them! I've seen a lot of them on RU-vid lately, and really am not happy about the idea of impressionable kids being fed their racist, homophobic, anti-progressive garbage before watching their favorite video game RU-vidrs or whatever.
Gosh, these new videos on hankschannel are giving me moments of content I deeply enjoy for no good reason - for example I could watch the part where Hank talks about sheep and llamas and how they react to wolves on a loop, or the "I don't know what that means" at 2:26 in this video.
That was helpful! I found the control panel. I NEVER would have thought to look there. You're SO right about how less than completely useful this is.There SOULD be a place where you can spot check what ads are running with your content, and then gong individual ads, advertisers, and/or whole categories. I wouldn't know what to block without seeing it first. If someone published list anti-progressive advertisers that I could block, that would be helpful. Of course, someone with the opposite politics of mine could do that too. - Maybe they already do. Nothing is easy - Thank God for RU-vid Red,
you probably meant "thank God FOR youtube red" and made a typo, but I like the idea that people who don't believe in a God can instead pray to the paid-for youtube service.
I'd also like to point out that I have one (yes, only one. But still an exception) of this not working. I watched a vlogbrothers video three hours after this video went online that was an advertisement for Scientology TV. Which I would think would be excluded by the religion slider in sensitive topics. So I don't even know if those buttons do anything.
I know it's incredibly frustrating, but I want you to know that I genuinely appreciate you bringing the exact mechanics at play to the forefront. I'm still hoeing that if more people know how it all works, we can work together to design a better system, or at least patch this one effectively. You are a wonderful ally, we are very much grateful for your support.
I'm glad you're tackling this. I feel like if any content creator on youtube has a shot at effecting positive change, you're probably it. The whole toolset looks like it was thrown together without any thought about what it might impact. You nailed it when you said 'a little granularity would be nice' because the broad-stroke options are like taking a wrecking ball to your kitchen just to take out the cabinets. People need tools that can protect the people they want to protect without eliminating potentially positive content. And they need the ability to block content from channels (it's shocking this tool doesn't exist already). And frankly, the fact that even you didn't know about these tools until now is a good sign that RU-vid is doing a poor job of making content creators aware that these tools exist. Which isn't surprising - I don't think RU-vid thinks it's in their best interest, monetarily, for content creators en masse to shrink the viability of certain ad subjects.
I've been craving so much more granularity than this too. Not only because of brand deals and offensive content, but for example I'd love for ASMR creators (and other intentionally relaxing artists) to have the ability to restrict to quiet, less-intrusive ads.
Also... I think advertising online is just utterly broken. I use adblockplus (among other services) to firstly protect my computer from malware and adware... secondly to protect my privacy at least a little more than it would be otherwise... thirdly to make my web experience slightly more smooth and enjoyable because advertisements online have gotten out of control between offensive intrusive and stressful aspects of it (at least for me)... I feel like adblockplus with their whitelist project is trying to fix these challenges that web advertising faces. I actually like commercials and advertisements too... I think they can be cute, enjoyable, fun, and all of that... but online they are just so broken that I couldn't cope with it anymore.
I got excited at the blocking of like razor companies bc for people who have struggled with Self-harm its a big trigger, gillette are really bad with it (IK it was the brand deal thing but at least it means I don't have to worry abt this) . Ik you can opt out of certain kinds of ads to appear before vids but that dosen't always filter through, it sucks. I know it's my responsibility as the consumer to avoid ads like this, after all this is Hank's livelyhood but it's also astonishingly hard to get rid of Ad's that trigger you or just make you uncomfy. Basically, you tube sort your shit out Hank, you're doing a great job
They're just saying "don't do it please" because Google gets paid per click, and if you're clicking for a reason other than the reason the advertiser wants you to (because you're interested in their thing) that's click fraud.
From a technical standpoint, you have cookies from google on your computer, the click initially goes to google then is forwarded to the advertiser. So they see who clicks and knows if you click your own ads. They also track IP and tons of harder to bust things than just cookies, and they also jump to conclusions if one of your fans that thinks they are being helpful decides to click on all your ads. A lot of people end up losing their ability to get ad money early on when a fan decides to do that to them. Happened to me once.
Seriously loving you're videos that are calling out the major problems in advertisements of RU-vid and Google! Thank you again for bringing this information to us all :)
So glad you're covering RU-vid ad policy further, and so frustrated we're talking about it at all. Gonna give the benefit of the doubt and assume the RU-vid employee who replied with an Adsense link was like, "These are probably content creators, let's quickly look up a solution!" Which is terrible social media-ing, but whatever. idk if this is of any help at all, but there's a way to get the video URL of the ad. By pausing the ad, right-clicking, and clicking Stats for Nerds, you can find the ad's video ID. Then you can get to the probably unlisted video ad. Then idk, report and flag the video? Who knows how much of an impact that will do, since Prager U is still a thing. But hey, apparently RU-vid doesn't have any answers either!
Hank, mate keep fighting the good fight. I knew about you as my 10 year old Son's favourite sci show guy. My 18 year old daughter got us all hooked on that :) Now I see you are even more awesome, a fantastic role model for my children and a pleasure to watch. We don't have a conventional TV at home because content is dull, brain junk food. Thanks for helping to build RU-vid into a quality platform.
This doesn’t seem like an ideal situation for advertisers either. Audiences are really poorly targeted. It’s lame that you have to make time for this game. Ain’t nobody got time for this.
Thanks for talking about this stuff. Not only for other creators but for us viewers to better understand the community and what's going on behind the scenes.
It's the nature of a counter culture. Ever since left-wing became mainstream, right wing considered itself the victim and everyone loves an underdog and letting out any repressed bigoted sentiment (not that right-wing people are inherently bigoted).
This whole situation is just so ridiculous. This seems like a thing that RU-vid should have had the forethought to address in a better, less convoluted way. I'm really excited to not have to see PragerU ads, or at least see fewer of them, in front of SciShow videos, though!
I love how passionate he is about this. We need more people like this who are willing to at the very least, explain the problem, and even better, offer actual solutions.
Ah yes I remember stumbling onto that page when I was allowed to monetize videos... I remember blocking horror movie ads because I hate them haha. (And a bunch of other things I don't remember.)
This video really needs to be seen and used by more creators. I see it all the time that creators want to block a certain kind of ad but just don’t know how
Thank you for making this! It's a truly stupid system and I hope it gets changed ASAP. It is literally a discriminatory policy/system and it's disgusting.
Once again - Hank Green, wading through Kafka-esque redtape behind-the-scenes on RU-vid so WE don't have to. Great video sir. If I didn't know better, I'd say RU-vid was using the IRS handbook for customer-facing interface design.
I've seen Preger U on so many channels (that obviously are not pro right-wing propaganda). In other news, YT keeps demonetizing and restricting perfectly harmless videos like ReviewBrah's food reviews of chicken. YT needs to get their shit together.
Great video, Hank. Thanks. I’m not a RU-vidr but I’m frequently frustrated by ads that don’t match the audience of the video they’re pre-rolling on. I especially hate previews for scary movies. “Appropriate for All Audiences” my ass!
One way to do this is to go to adssettings.google.com, I believe you can block certain types of ads from showing up for you. However, to enable that option, you have to authorize Google to "personalize your ad experience" which involves collection and use of your personal information, and possibly sharing that with advertisers. So unfortunately, it seems like the best option right now would be to use a general adblocker in your browser.
It's just a terrible idea for RU-vid to be demonetizing tons of creators (for why now?) while also making it nearly impossible to prevent hateful pre-rolls. I mean, if I were a creator just starting out today, I'm looking at this whole mess and just thinking "No thanks!" Like, I'd still put up videos, but my plan to monetize would be entirely based on brand deals, patreon, and merch, because the aggravation of dealing with YT's ad system is just not worth it anymore.
I've been operating under the assumption that ads are mostly tailored to the video consumer and their internet activity, not the video creator. I don't get nra ads but I do get ads about relationships and makeup because I'm not into guns but I am single and into makeup.
Wow. I can feel my blood pressure rising and I don't even do content yet! On the other hand I get to see Hank being awesome Ranty McRantster. I hope that chill pill kicks in soon.
Potential solution for you, that's a bit overkill. For blocking specific URLs, just explicitly block the entirety of youtube from appearing as an add. It means any acceptable ads that link to youtube videos would ALSO be blocked, which might not be good. Another potential solution would be to make counter-ads that and run them against their content the way you they do to you. if both sides are abusing the system, the entire system must be fixed, as a way of forcing google's hand.
Having more control over ad content is definitely something that could be better, but my bigger frustration is ad lengths. It seems like there has been improvement here, but I still occasionally have to skip 5+ minute ads for a 2-3 minute video. At least they are skippable, but ad length should be proportional to the video length. Even then, I'm not so sure infomercial length ads should be preroll either. Who actually watches those? I certainly don't. If it's related and plays at the end, then I MIGHT watch it - especially if its another creator trying to promote their channel.
I have to say this whole ad scenario is very interesting to me, it only affects me indirectly, because I don't see ads with RU-vid Red, so I only have to deal with how creators have to react to the situation, the whole adpocalyse has been disturbing, and this seems like more fallout from that.
When I was setting up AdSense for my website I turn a lot of the same categories off as you have. I've also turn off ads on most of my videos and I sometimes forget RU-vid has ads as I have a RU-vid Red account.
Hank has gone past stress. He has gone into the “I’m so stressed that I look calm but everything about me is acting up right now so don’t even touch me” mode.
I never knew we had these tools and frankly I don't think that generally anyone else on the site knew about them either. It seems like a really important thing RU-vid sold have brought up in a major update post or as a reminder to the public when their new changes to how ads worked was happening. This just feels like yet another communication failure on RU-vid's part.
I'm not a RU-vidr so this is somewhat irrelevant for me, but Hank you are just such an entertaining and interesting person to watch! This is such an unproductive thing for me to be doing!
Angry Dad Hank gets Educational!! Also my guess of why its called content host, is because like you said other groups and stuff are buying the pre-roll space which shows as an add, but in a way its the person's channel hosting that content clip before their own video, but it sucks because unless they've gone to this if they even have access for the most part they aren't consenting to the shit that's getting placed before their video
Ive been thinking about this for a while. As I see it there are three groups: the consumer (us watching RU-vid), the content creator and the advertising companies. I have never understood why the system is always bias towards the advertising company. Why do content creators have to change their videos to please advertisers? So that the advertiser can choose which content to to attach their ads to? Why can’t the consumer choose which adverts he/she wants to watch? For example, if I didn’t want to see any adverts from Coca-Cola why aren’t I able to block a specific company? And, as Hank has described in this video, why can’t content creators choose what adverts are attached to their videos? It’s a system that benefits only one group. It doesn’t seem fair...
Love it when Hank goes on a Francis rant. Seriously, this is a massive problem. I hope YT gets it's act together, or they'll leave the door open for other platforms to scoop up all these creators who are tiered of this crap.
Daniel Pezzi It's pretty similar except in addition to categories of video to show your ad on there are demographic options for who to show your ad to.
Wish there was a way for viewer to block ad categories on our end, too. Obviously there'd need to be a limit too it so you couldn't just block ALL ads, but it seems like there's a enough ads within the YT platform that there'd still be enough general ads to go around. Could also have the secondary effect of advertisers making shitty ads not getting their screen time and disappearing. Or one would hope. Until then, though... I'm feeling more and more justified in my use of AdBlocker.
Thanks for addressing this Hank. This is a broken system. Hopefully RU-vid will make their own separate AdSense platform with much easier controls for your channels and networks.
I've been getting ads for beer, I don't drink beer but I don't mind them. They're actually calm, short, and sometimes funny. I give thumbs up so I can avoid the obnoxious ones.
The end there of "This is the world we live in, sorry" in the high pitch borderline hysterical voice is just i feel like how kost of us are feeling in general latley. And I kind of want to make it my ringtone.
This just occurred to me. Sorry for the late comment. Hank, now that you’re a writer, I think you should consider joining one of my favorite bands in the world. They’re called the Rock Bottom Remainders and they’re amazing and smart and funny. They all happen to be writers as well. I’m talking Amy Tan, Dave Barry, and Stephen King are among my favorite band members. The guy who wrote Go the F-- to Sleep is now a member too. My fingers are crossed that one day you (and possibly John) will be a part of this amazing group of people. This is my dream within a dream within a wish.
No one I know watches ads. That being said, being showed ads (should you choose to watch) that go against who you are at least gives you the name of the company paying for the ad. Knowing your adversary is never a bad thing.
One problem: OK, several related problems. -- Do they consider gay-friendly or neutral ads to be sensitive too? I wouldn't want anti-gay ads as a viewer or if I were a creator, but I'd be one with neutral or friendly ads. (well, except that I don't like ads.) And given how I grew up with so little info on anything to do with sex/gender (except pitiful sex ed in school) I would hate for information in general on sex/gender topics to be blocked. I get the feeling there are lots more issues that RU-vid's current ad mgmt is not handling well. I've seen anti-gay ads on friendly RU-vidrs' content, and that disturbs me for myself, for others, and for the sake of the RU-vidrs creating content. Hank, as usual, thank you for being smart and caring enough to address things reasonably, constructively, and in a full and fair manner.
Is it bad that I love when hanks upset about stuff because really its just hank caring and he's real passionate about what he cares about and that's great.
This is good information to have. Definitely clunky and advertisers not appropriately flagging themselves is a concern, but it's certainly a start. You should know btw that managing individual ads on youtube isn't really feasible for a human. I see exclusively ads that are Singapore specific. Probably half of them are the government advertising some new project. If you wanted to manage your individual ads you'd probably be looking at thousands of ads per day targeting demographics both local and foreign.
I always watch ads and click links to things that I am opposed to that come up on channels that I like. I think of it as transferring money from bad to good.
As a UX designer this system is both incredibly frustrating and also intriguing. I kind of really want to get my hands on the requirements and try to FIX IT
