Epic Games Pulls 'Fortnite' YouTube Ads Following Pedophile Sex Ring Discovery

The world was shocked when some of our favorite streamers were caught involved in a YouTube pedophile sex ring last month. Following a recent Reddit post showing off how YouTube did nothing to stop this - and even how they were able to make money off of it - talk surrounding the platform became much more heated. It's because of this that Epic Games has decided to pull their future Fortnite ads from the platform until further notice.

"We have paused all pre-roll advertising," an Epic Games spokesperson told our friends over at The Verge. "Through our advertising agency, we have reached out to Google/YouTube to determine actions they'll take to eliminate this type of content from their service."

For those that may not know what "pre-roll" means, it's an ad that pops up before a video begins to play. More often than not, viewers will have the option to "skip ad' after 5 seconds, whereas some videos force viewers to sit through the howl thing. Following the above video's expose thanks to Matt Watson, some companies are rethinking their ad plan following the recent controversy to come to light. In the same vein, many are calling for YouTube to take action.

Many dismiss the comment section as "internet culture," but as the video points out - it's a breeding ground for predator behavior, often targeting the more explicit videos in terms of perception as a means to sexualize even children.

"YouTube's recommended algorithm is facilitating pedophiles' ability to connect with each-other, trade contact info, and link to actual child pornography in the comments," Watson wrote on Reddit. "I can consistently get access to it from vanilla, never-before-used YouTube accounts via innocuous videos in less than ten minutes, in sometimes less than five clicks."

YouTube has since been removing accounts and channels that displayed this sort of behavior, as well as comment deletion and reporting illegal activity. "Any content — including comments — that endangers minors is abhorrent and we have clear policies prohibiting this on YouTube," a YouTube spokesperson told The Verge. "There's more to be done, and we continue to work to improve and catch abuse more quickly."

At this time, we don't know if Epic Games will bring back their pre-roll ads, or which other gaming companies will follow suit, but considering this is by far not the first time this subject has come to light it's clear that there is more action needed.