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Journalism of Courage
With more than 2.5 billion active users, YouTube is one of the most popular social media websites in the world. While people across the world rely on the video-sharing platform for entertainment, and even work, it comes with its own share of problems.
Earlier this week, an innocuous nine-word tweet about the platform’s frequent advertisement breaks went viral.
On Wednesday, a user who goes by the handle “@wydccalamity” tweeted, “Youtube having THREE ads before a video is insane”. This tweet went viral as it resonated with YouTube users around the world and soon garnered over 3 lakh likes and over 23,000 retweets.
YouTube, which earns most of its revenue from advertisements, replied to the criticism and commented, “hey there – this may happen w/ a certain type of ad format called bumper ads (since they’re super short, only up to 6 secs). but we appreciate your honest feedback & will be sure to share it w/ the appropriate team!”
However, this response failed to impress netizens who pointed out that many back-to-back ads that are ‘un-skippable’ are longer in duration. Echoing this argument, a Twitter user responded, “totally false…your bumper ads are 25 seconds long..in some cases..35 seconds…do not lie here saying your bumper ads are only 6 secs long”.
https://twitter.com/Ivrboyhwa/status/1539831760783114241
https://twitter.com/xiaolongbao___o/status/1539833114406830080
People also raised the issue of age-appropriate advertisements and replied to YouTube, “While you are at it, can you stop putting condoms ad, which can’t be skipped and ain’t age appropriate. Watching them while waiting for baby shark to play is ‘difficult’”.
