
Ask HN: Are state sponsored ads on YouTube a new thing? - krstf13
Over the past couple of days I was subjected to ads on youtube of a new kind - at least to me.
None of those ads clearly displayed who ran them, and both were of political&#x2F;diplomatic nature.
The small link underneath the video showed that the first one came from the Polish Prime Minister&#x27;s office and the second one came from the Turkish public broadcasting company.
I&#x27;m wondering whether this is a new trend or I just missed those up until now. Also, shouldn&#x27;t youtube make it clear when it runs state sponsored ads? I mean it seems a bit hypocritical to vow to go against fake news and then not implement some sort of guidelines when monetising states&#x27; official discourse.
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mtmail
YouTube will mark those now "YouTube will start labeling videos that receive
government funding" (Feb/2nd) [http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-
fi-tn-youtube-...](http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-
youtube-news-20180202-story.html)

Maybe they were suppressed for a while and now resurfaced?

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krstf13
My understanding is that these new policies apply to videos, not paid for ads.
Maybe these ads are actually an answer to these policies? What I find
disturbing is that you could watch the whole ad (in the Polish case) and never
know who ran it as you're just provided with a hashtag at the end of it.

