Ask HN: Are state sponsored ads on YouTube a new thing?
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/diplomatic nature.
The small link underneath the video showed that the first one came from the Polish Prime Minister's office and the second one came from the Turkish public broadcasting company.
I'm wondering whether this is a new trend or I just missed those up until now. Also, shouldn'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' official discourse. 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-... Maybe they were suppressed for a while and now resurfaced? 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.