YouTube is (Still) Loaded with White Nationalist and Neo-Nazi Music, But no Advertiser Boycott? #StopHateForProfit

By now you are probably aware of the campaign to get brands to stop advertising on Facebook because of the prevalence of hate speech. The campaign has been endorsed by a number of civil rights organizations including The NAACP and Anti-Defamation League.  The campaign owes much of it’s success to Sleeping Giants (twitter handle @slpng_giants) a largely anonymous social media activist group.  Sleeping Giants was the force behind successful advertiser boycotts of Breitbart and Fox News.  Facebook is now their biggest trophy.

Over the last decade, my fellow bloggers at the Trichordist have documented the prevalence of white nationalist and neo-nazi music on YouTube.  Here are just a few examples:

2013

https://thetrichordist.com/2013/11/07/ytma-artists-can-help-clean-up-youtube-an-open-letter-to-jason-schwartzman-lady-gaga-spike-jonze-m-i-a-arcade-fire-and-macklemore/

2014

https://thetrichordist.com/2014/04/15/youtube-still-serving-ads-on-hate-rock-videos/

https://thetrichordist.com/2014/11/13/will-the-new-youtube-streaming-service-feature-all-the-hate-rock-currently-featured-on-youtube/

2015

https://thetrichordist.com/2015/07/16/advertisers-how-is-youtube-any-different-than-reddit/

2017

https://thetrichordist.com/2017/02/15/forget-pewdiepie-here-are-100-hate-rock-bands-that-youtube-still-hosts/

YouTube advertisers have periodically reacted to these reports by pulling advertising.  But YouTube continues to be loaded with hate rock.  You can verify this yourself by checking the Southern Poverty Law Center list of white nationalist bands and then searching on YouTube.  Here are some screenshots from my most recent search.

Fortress, Kill Baby Kill, The Bully Boys, Skrewdriver, Final War, etc.  The gang is ALL there!  And not all these videos were “user-generated content.” Many of these were official uploads by music distributors like CD Baby (Bully Boys).  And of course, many of these videos were monetized by YouTube.

So if advertisers are concerned that their ads will end up next to hate speech shouldn’t the #StopHateForProfit boycott also include YouTube? Then again maybe some advertisers just don’t care? (See below).