Mental Health

I’m Concerned About Some YouTube Ads Although I Marvel the Platform’s Value

Unless a two-pronged radical change is made to commercial ads, this generation might face serious financial and health issues.

Purpose of the Article and Context

First of all, as a technologist, I have admired Google’s remarkable services since its inception and find YouTube incredibly valuable to society as a paradigm shift in content creation and distribution domains. I am grateful for their services.

YouTube brought democracy and significantly contributed to knowledge distribution. In addition to its entertainment aspect, the educative value of YouTube is exemplary.

Opportunities are endless for creators and consumers, as there is something for everyone. For example, I see great value for creators. Therefore, I created a YouTube channel and, recently a specialized publication on this platform to support writers and create visibility for their work and profiles as video clips.

In addition, YouTube improves the quality and consumer experience constantly. For example, they recently removed the dislike attacks, as I mentioned in a recent article titled Finally, It Is the End of Dislike Attacks on YouTube.

However, as an ardent consumer of the platform, I see a substantial problem with YouTube consumption for specific types of users who might be vulnerable to some content, primarily commercial ads.

What is the real problem?

Some readers might ask what the problem is if YouTube is so marvelous.

Like all good things, YouTube has a significant problem that worsens daily. It is related to the choice of advertisements misleading to inexperienced and over-optimistic consumers.

I have no first-hand knowledge of the selection or acceptance criteria for YouTube ads. I believe there is a set of criteria.

However, as a consumer, I have serious concerns that I’d like to share in this post transparently at a high level without going into specifics.

Since the pandemic started, I have had more chances to use YouTube to discover more content related to my interest areas. Gratefully, I came across remarkable content that contributed to my knowledge accumulation. Meeting new creators each day excites me.

Since I don’t have a premium subscription to YouTube, every video I watch comes with advertisements. I have no problem with that as I also see advertisements as an information source.

Since March 2020, I have observed ads in each video. I have no issue with the overall quality of the ads. Most of them are very well designed and presented. Some are more informative than the actual videos.

However, I have serious concerns about the specific types of ads that are overtly misleading, causing scams. It is impossible to go into details about the ads, but I provide a high-level view of my concerns.

Of course, it might not be possible to screen each ad for validity; however, some ads are so overtly scammy that some resources on Google have even offered scam alerts. But the ads still happen on YouTube.

Scams are skyrocketing.

I’d like to give a few examples.

One ad imitates the impersonate of a well-known and wealthy man. When I followed the fake content, it was not too hard to notice the scam.

Numerous ads introduce affiliate marketing schemes. Since affiliate marketing interests me, I followed the ads, and when I connected with those companies, I found that what they offered was a scam. They were selling spammy robots.

The ads looked so genuine that I fell into the trap as an experienced affiliate marketer. They all offer risk-free returns, which are appealing to the public. But in reality, some don’t accept returns.

For example, I purchased an affordable program believing in the return policy. After trying the product for a few days, it was absolutely useless.

I followed the return policy because there was no value in the product. Not to my surprise, they did not accept the return, so I was scammed as an experienced consumer.

Other concerns ads are related to the stock market and Forex trading. When I followed them, I noticed that what was offered in the ad and the actual proposal conflicted. They were misleading.

Young people without trading experience can believe in these false promises and waste their money and valuable time. Even worse, they might get disappointed with scams and lose faith in legitimate businesses.

My goal is to create awareness among consumers. We must be careful with commercial ads offering too good to be true promises.

For example, some stock trade or crypto ads offer thousands of dollars daily with only a few minutes of time investment using a single app or a bot. If everyone buys the app, they would hypothetically be rich in a year and retire at a young age.

Is it possible? It is not. But they make it look real by showing emotional clips, like some people buying expensive cars and houses in a month. They appeal to young people who want to earn money without making any effort.

I see two generational issues. The first one is these ads exploit young consumers psychologically. The second one is they cause the elderly to be scammed as they don’t understand technology like the new generation.

I read similar concerns from other writers. Some believe that a large percentage of ads on YouTube are scams. I am not sure about the precise percentage, but it is also my perception based on the type of ads I consume.

Other types of ads are related to health, fitness, well-being, and lifestyles. For example, some supplements are introduced to lose substantial weight and cure debilitating diseases without any lifestyle modifications.

Some ads are so misleading that they are too good to be true. For example, they show XYZ tried this supplement and lost 80 pounds in a month. Their skin problems were resolved and never came back. Their hair and teeth were back after a certain age.

Misleading ads also affect the next generation’s perceptions, giving them the idea that we can create unlimited and easy money by purchasing or subscribing to a simple app or robot.

When I reviewed some of those bots, they were nothing but spamming machines which might create boomerang effects on the users.

What is the solution?

As a realistic technologist, I know that this is a complex problem considering the size of YouTube and its global nature. I also believe that Google, as a leading organization, is doing its best to remove harmful content.

Therefore, I see the solution as two-pronged.

In my opinion, the low-hanging fruit is from the platform to remove misleading ads as fast as possible. This might take a while as there are millions of videos, and I assume the same amount of ads exist on the platform.

I am not sure whether there is a reporting mechanism for harmful ads. I couldn’t find it so far. If there is, it needs to be clear so that informed consumers can report making Google’s job easier. For example, Gmail has an excellent reporting system that I have used for many years successfully.

If there is no ad reporting mechanism, then it is time for Google to implement it. I believe I am not the first person to offer this solution. But it is worth recording for awareness and as a duty of call.

The second approach is to inform and educate the consumer not to fall into the traps. It is precisely my purpose for this article.

Consumer awareness is critical in cyberspace. Unfortunately, some ads are extremely risky to consume, especially for young people lacking an understanding of the market and the elderly who are not tech-savvy.

As children also watch these videos and not everyone has YouTube premium, parents need to monitor YouTube watching and educate their kids.

Conclusions and Takeaways

YouTube is an excellent platform for giving voice to creators globally and democratizing content creation and dissemination. However, we must be careful with commercial ads to keep our sanity.

The implications and impact might go beyond financial loss. For example, some misleading ads might affect both physical and mental health. Primarily they are risky for children and young adults.

The key point is if an ad is too good to be true, most likely it is, so it needs to be consumed with a grain of salt.

Another societal issue with YouTube videos is related to deep fake technologies that I documented in an article titled Let’s Talk About Dangers of Deep Fake Technologies, Causing Grief: A viewpoint and informed approach to deal with a double-edged sword posing critical risks for individuals & society.

I believe some commercial videos might leverage the power of deep fake video technologies making them more compelling to the public. Therefore, we need to be extra careful with those types of overpromising videos that might confuse us.

Thank you for reading my perspectives. I wish you a healthy and happy life.

I’d like to obtain your thoughts and feelings about YouTube ads. Please feel free to share your ideas about potential solutions to this societal issue.

If you read or wrote similar articles, please link them in the comments section. Let’s create awareness collaboratively for our generation.

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