Non-motoring > YouTube - Criminal Adverts Legal Questions
Thread Author: zippy Replies: 11
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 Sun 20 Apr 25 23:27 
 YouTube - Criminal Adverts - zippy
I quite like YouTube. Some of the production values are astonishing and cover subjects that you just don't get on mainstream media, for example, there is an excellent video on how the blue led was invented and why it was so hard compared to the red and green LEDs.

What is getting really annoying is the number of adverts for fake products and AI generated adverts with the likes of Jeremy Clarkson, David Beckham and others extoling the virtues of dodgy investments.

YouTube and Google must know these adverts are related to cons / scams and are effectively criminal enterprises. To receive payment for them could therefore also be a crime.

If ITV showed these adverts there would be an uproar.

It really isn't on and it's a shame that the authorities don't have the balls to go after them.
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 Sun 20 Apr 25 23:31 
 YouTube - Criminal Adverts - smokie
Get a VPN and log on through Albania
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 Mon 21 Apr 25 00:00 
 YouTube - Criminal Adverts - zippy
I mainly watch YouTube on the TV, so I need to get a piHole or similar.

My main concern are the gullible people who are suckered in by this crud.
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 Mon 21 Apr 25 00:16 
 YouTube - Criminal Adverts - Fullchat
YouTube is also a platform for so called 'Auditors' standing up for our freedoms when it is clearly reaction baiting as enough views generate an income. Its purely harassment and often degenerates into cruel and personal insults. It could pull the plug on these at a stroke but seemingly refuses to do so.
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 Mon 21 Apr 25 00:59 
 YouTube - Criminal Adverts - Rudedog
The recent ones that get me are the get rich quick ads for either buying property without using your own or any money, investing in AI to beat the Stockmarket or publishing ebooks without having to write them - all seem to be forms of pyramid selling.

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 Mon 21 Apr 25 06:38 
 YouTube - Criminal Adverts - Crankcase
Pihole doesn’t stop YouTube ads.

I use the Brave browser, which does. I can run it on my iPad, and if I want to, I cast that to the tv for an ad free experience there.
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 Mon 21 Apr 25 10:04 
 YouTube - Criminal Adverts - CGNorwich
If the ads annoy you that much I guess you could simply subscribe to Premium and avoid them altogether.

Nothing comes for free.

m.youtube.com/premium
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 Mon 21 Apr 25 10:11 
 YouTube - Criminal Adverts - zippy
It's not the adds as such that annoy, after all we get them on ITV.

It's the ones that are clearly cons / illegal and just should not be allowed.

The ones that I am talking about show a famous person who has been "faked" by AI offering people £1k to £5k per day income. They are clearly cons and by accepting payments from a criminal source, YouTube may well be breaking the law.
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 Mon 21 Apr 25 10:29 
 YouTube - Criminal Adverts - Bromptonaut
Is the ad feed under the direct control of You Tube?

There was a well justified hoo hah a few years ago with web ads appearing to show Martin Lewis endorsing a crypto scam.

I was in a job at the time where I needed to check Council Tax liability for clients so was visiting Council websites. One, at the northern end of Lincolnshire, carried a stream of ads one of which was the offending Lewis thing.

Reported it but it was still there a few weeks later. The council seemed just to take money to accept a feed.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Mon 21 Apr 25 at 10:30
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 Mon 21 Apr 25 10:37 
 YouTube - Criminal Adverts - zippy
>>The council seemed just to take money to accept a feed.

Does that avoid culpability - it's still receiving money from the sources of crime?
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 Mon 21 Apr 25 10:55 
 YouTube - Criminal Adverts - Terry
The root cause of all these problems:

- the carrier will claim not to be the publisher and thus has no responsibility for the content
- YT will claim to be but a tool used to create the content which others use entirely legitimately
- the originator, if they can be identified, may be in a jurisdiction with no effective sanction

Governments have sought to make the carriers responsible for the content with only limited success related to the truly unpleasant - eg: child porn.

Unsurprisingly carriers do not want greater regulation - (a) be very costly, and (b) likely ineffective as like drug dealers and small boat gangs - knock one down and another quickly appears.

It will only change when the government has the balls to get properly tough - denying access to to consumers which will hurt the carriers. Start off with a 2 minute black out, rising steadily through an hour, a day, a week, a month until finally permanently blacklisted.
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 Mon 21 Apr 25 10:38 
 YouTube - Criminal Adverts - Manatee
Same with Facebook. I occasionally report one threat is a clear scam and after a week in review they always say "we have not removed the advert on this occasion".
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