Ask HN: How are so many fake ads allowed on YouTube?

80 points

3 years ago

One third of all commercials I see on youtube are outright fake. Either it's a fake business story, fake description of "inventions" or outright deep fakes of famous people dubbed to telling lies. I can't figure out why google / youtube are taking this so lightly, or what it is that is missing from their approval procedure (don't they have any?).

The production quality is good enough to cheat eg. my parents, but it doesn't take me 2 seconds to spot it, so I'm amazed it can go on.

Anyone with background insights into the approval / reporting procedure or knowledge of if Google just doesn't care?

I also assume there must be a healthy business for someone, producing these commercials for companies so eager for attention - could they maybe be called out?

For instance, the one triggering me to make this post was of Elon Musk, unveiling some trading platform leading to this site[1], where the video in the ad can also be seen. I have no idea how to link to the youtube ads, but if I did I would have collected a loonng list of fakes by now.

[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-tucker-carlson-elon-musk/fact-check-tucker-carlson-segment-on-elon-musk-quantum-ai-is-fake-idUSL1N3A90N2

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