A TV ad group wants YouTube to clean up its slop. Can it?

Traditional studios are eager to increase activity on YouTube, but before that plan can go full speed ahead, the platform and its partners must confront issues that have plagued YouTube since its earliest days: IP infringement and unsafe content.

The Video Advertising Bureau (VAB), a trade group whose members include NBCUniversal, ESPN, and Sony Pictures Television, has put YouTube on blast over the large volume of infringing videos that are removed from the platform each day. A moderation report published by VAB details YouTube’s slop problem by analyzing first-party data from semiannual takedown summaries.

The VAB found more than half the removed videos YouTube cited in its transparency reports already had at least one view, though the aggregate viewership among those videos hasn’t been made clear. In the first quarter of 2025, 8.6 million videos were taken down, and 54% of those removals were due to child safety reasons.

“My biggest takeaway from looking at the breadth of what we were able to assemble is the 24/7 assault that this platform is under from the worst of the worst actors,” said VAB CEO Sean Cunningham. “The fact that the sheer volume of assault is, if anything, only going up, clearly that can only be because bad actors are finding some significant margin of success at using this platform.”

Cunningham clarified that the VAB isn’t trying to “stain” YouTube, but rather wants to “assess the risk and demand transparency” that surrounds “the endless conveyor belt of ad dollars.” In response to the VAB report, a Google spokesperson stated that “our commitment to removing violative content and regular transparency reporting gives advertisers confidence to partner with YouTube and support our creators.”

YouTube’s effort is meaningful, but advertisers are nevertheless concerned about the videos that appear next to their spots. There have been reports of placements on illicit streams the feature unauthorized IP, and buyers have claimed that ads on videos that are eventually taken down results in less efficient campaigns. One anonymous exec told AdAge that YouTube refunded a $50,000 lump sum to brands whose ads ran on infringing inventory.

In an age when AI slop intersects with IP owned by Hollywood studios, YouTube may need to make its moderation technology more sophisticated. If AI is causing problems for advertisers and rights holders alike, maybe it can be part of the solution, too.

At the same time, the VAB’s report should be taken with a grain of salt, as the group’s members include subscription-based streaming services like Peacock, Paramount+, Hulu, and HBO Max. Those entities may have ulterior motives that are leading them to cast YouTube’s inventory as an underregulated landscape. But no matter how loud its competitors protest, YouTube is still drawing massive interest from advertisers — slop be damned.