YouTube says it's not asking creators to moderate their comments or face ad restrictions, clarifying a message that has worried some of the site's members. Yesterday, amid controversy over child predators congregating on YouTube, the Team YouTube Twitter account stated that "inappropriate comments" could result in videos having limited or no advertising. A YouTube spokesperson, however, tells The Verge that the platform isn't basing these limits on creators' comment sections. Instead, YouTube moderators are evaluating videos that seem likely to attract predatory comments, then restricting advertising as a short-term fix.

These restrictions …

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YouTube is "aggressively approaching" a solution to its recent child exploitation controversy by clamping down on monetization, increasing moderation, and addressing recommendation search issues.

This week, YouTube has further limited which videos some ads can run on and has applied those ad restrictions to millions of videos, according to a memo sent to advertisers, which was obtained by AdWeek. The memo describes how YouTube is trying to protect children as major companies, including Disney, Epic Games, AT&T, and Nestle, pull ads from the platform.

It's a direct response to an ongoing campaign bringing attention to videos used by predato …

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YouTube has terminated more than 400 channels and deleted tens of millions of comments in response to concerns from creators, users, and advertisers over videos being used to exploit children.

The details come from YouTube's creator outreach team in response to a video from commentator Philip DeFranco published yesterday evening. The team's statement said that "all of us at YouTube" are working on the problem, and that "we are continuing to grow our team in order to keep people safe." YouTube has also been reporting comments and accounts to law enforcement, which it has to do in compliance with federal law.

Advertisers and creators have re …

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Disney has reportedly pulled its ads from YouTube entirely in the wake of new controversy over a series of new videos showcasing child exploitation on the site.

A report from Bloomberg states that Disney has "withheld its spending" on YouTube in the wake of creator Matt Watson's explainer, which demonstrates how predators use videos of children to sexually exploit them. Disney joins Fortnite developer Epic Games and Nestlé in removing its ads from the platform. (Epic removed its Fortnite preroll ads that appear before a video plays.) Other companies, including Peloton, have asked YouTube to investigate the situation.

Although predatory beh …

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YouTube creators are worried that a catastrophic drop in ad revenue may be upon them following a new controversy over YouTube's inability to curve predatory behavior on content featuring young children.

"I'm not reporting the story because it negatively affects the whole YouTube community," Daniel "Keemstar" Keem, the host of popular show, DramaAlert, tweeted. "We don't need another ad apocalypse. What I have done behind the scenes though is reached out to my YouTube contacts showing them the video and my team is showing them content to take down. This is not just about me. This is about all my friends big and small creators. I'm not report …

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YouTube is facing a new wave of criticism over the alarming number of predatory comments and videos targeting young children.

The latest concerns started with a Reddit post, submitted to r/Drama, and a YouTube video, exposing a "wormhole into a soft-core pedophilia ring on YouTube," according to Matt Watson. Watson, a former YouTube creator who returned with a single video and live stream about the topic, demonstrated how a search for something like "bikini haul," a subgenre of video where women show various bikinis they've purchased, can lead to disturbing and exploitative videos of children. The videos aren't pornographic in nature, but t …

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