What social responsibility does YouTube owe to its advertisers?

Suppose you own a company.  In order to reach a large audience, you decide to allocate your marketing funds with YouTube’s media advertising.  Your marketing is going well until you find out that your display ads are showing up next to inappropriate hate videos on YouTube.  Now, imagine this becoming a public relations save campaign to repair the damage done by these YouTube hate videos. What just happened?

Recently, several companies have pulled out of YouTube advertising due to this very scenario. Marriott, Etihad Airways, and Deliveroo found that their advertising was being displayed alongside hate videos.  In addition, some companies have reported that their advertising has been viewed on YouTube next to terrorist videos.

YouTube has responded to the negative feedback by stating that they are actively trying to control the quality of the video content that is live on the site. They attempt to monitor the site and take down improper videos.   The company says that overall only a small amount of media gets displayed on hate videos.

Is YouTube taking enough action to control the videos displayed on its site?  Being that YouTube does make a profit on media advertising, do they have a social responsibility to their advertisers to protect the quality of their brands.  Currently, PepsiCo, Walmart and Verizon have decided to move away from YouTube due to the quality control of the hate videos posted.

What more can YouTube do to protect its advertisers from hate videos on its site.  Are advertisers expecting too much from YouTube.

References

Alba, D (2017, April 21).  The hidden laborers training AI to keep ads off hateful YouTube videos.  Retrieved from https://www.wired.com/2017/04/zerochaos-google-ads-quality-raters/.

Kottasova, I. (2017, June 7). Google loses more advertisers over hate videos.  Retrieved from http://money.cnn.com/2017/06/07/technology/google-youtube-hate-videos-isis/index.html.

Townsend, T (2017, March 29). Google is letting its advertisers who bolted see which videos their ads could run on.  Retrieved fromhttps://www.recode.net/2017/3/29/15106026/google-allowing-monitoring-preferred-content-advertising