A hate crime video that comes with an ad from a reputable company can spell disaster for YouTube's ad campaign, while Facebook doesn't share the same consequence. YouTube gets a big portion of their revenue from ads, specially when it comes from more established companies.
However, some of these well-known companies had their ads shown in a hate crime video, or clips that promote terrorism. While this doesn't directly affect Google's streaming service, YouTube, it damages the reputation of these established brands.
According to USA Today, there are already over 250 reputable companies and organizations that have boycotted YouTube's advertising campaign. After seeing their ads next to a hate crime video or any video promoting terrorism, companies such as McDonald's, Verizon, AT&T, Johnson & Johnson and even the UK government, to name a few, have decided to pull back their funding in YouTube's Ad service.
This has been a big blow on Google's finances, as it is reported that their company shares have dropped by 4 percent, as a result of the major companies pulling back their respective ad campaigns. It's also uncertain if Google can prevent any hate crime video promoting acts of terrorism, to exclude ads that come from reputable brands.
Alphabet, Google's parent company, have responded to the issue, but failed to guarantee that such instances will be prevented in the future. "We can't guarantee, but we can get pretty close", Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt added.
While Google is going through a PR nightmare because of that, Facebook is sitting comfortably, without the dilemma that YouTube is facing. Although ads in a hate crime video can also appear on Facebook, both companies are in different situations.
According to New York Times, there are some factors that prevent Facebook from having a similar ad campaign backlash. One of those factors is that, Facebook has less direct control over the content that's uploaded on the site, regardless if it involves a hate crime video or not.
Another factor is that, Facebook doesn't use humans in placing their ad content, they use algorithms instead. Both Facebook and Google can easily fall into an ad campaign backlash disaster, specially when it comes to ads connected to a hate crime video. However, there are stark differences in their ad business models that's keeping Facebook from falling into Google's recent PR catastrophe.
