YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki pitches the service and its shows to advertisers each year at an event called Brandcast.
Noam Galai/FilmMagic for YouTubeYouTube has 1.8 billion people registered viewers every month, not counting any people who watch the massive video service without logging in.
"It's incredibly important to me and to everyone at YouTube that we grow responsibly," Wojcicki said Thursday, speaking at a New York presentation for advertisers known as a Newfront. "There is not a playbook for how open platforms like us operate at scale…it's critical that we're on the right side of history."
YouTube has been grappling for more than a year to balance the needs of its advertisers with its uploaders' expectations for creative freedom. Last year, an outcry about commercials running next to offensive videos sparked an advertiser boycott. When YouTube responded by more aggressively pulling ads off sensitive clips, it ended up outraging some uploaders who lost their moneymaking power -- an event dubbed "Adpocalypse."
The sheer scale of YouTube -- 400 hours of video are uploaded to the site every minute -- makes it hard for the company to stay ahead of abuse. But that massive scale is what makes YouTube an attractive place for advertising, the foundation of its revenue.
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