Rundown: Which advertisers have jumped from YouTube

The content on YouTube is growing at a rate of roughly 400 hours of video per minute.

Alas, that makes it pretty tough to police.

And so the list of companies yanking their ads from the Google-owned video site over concerns about appearing next to extremist content is growing at a torrid pace as well.

In just over a week, more than a dozen major advertisers have joined a boycott of the Google-owned site, including most recently Starbucks, WalMart and PepsiCo.

They join Johnson & Johnson, Verizon, Volkswagen, The Guardian, AT&T and others.  

“The content with which we are being associated is appalling and completely against our company values,” said a statement from WalMart.

The advertisers say the videos include racist, sexist videos that use symbolism of hate groups. When ads pop up on those videos, the implicit takeaway is that advertisers support those types of messages, even though they have never screened the content.

Google: Too little, too late?

Google has indicated it will hire more staff to screen videos and steer advertising away from objectionable content. The search giant has also said it will block some of the most offensive content, though that would certainly spark a debate over censorship.

Despite YouTube’s efforts at damage control, it may be too late for some advertisers. Pepsi and WalMart, among others, said they’re pulling out of other Google advertising as well as part of their protest.

The impact could hit hundreds of millions of dollars, analysts say.

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