• by Alex Weprin , May 11, 2018

Technology giant Cisco said it had "temporarily paused" advertising on YouTube due to brand-safety concerns.

In a statement, the company said the decision was made “due to instances where third party partners did not meet our brand guidelines.” 

In a blog post, CMO Karen Walker wrote that Cisco has “adopted the most rigorous industry standards to help ensure our online advertising does not accidentally end up in the wrong place, such as on a streaming video with sensitive content or a site that does not align with the values of our brand.”

She added, “At Cisco, we would rather not wait for something bad to happen. We are working closely with all of our media partners to ensure that Cisco’s online advertising meets our stringent standards.”

Cisco is just the latest advertiser to pull its ads from YouTube -- others include HP and Mars.

To help ensure brand safety, YouTube has tightened its rules for what channels can be monetized, and allows advertisers to place their ads only on videos that have been reviewed by a person.

Still, with 300 hours of video uploaded every minute to the platform, it has been challenge to weed out some inappropriate content.

"It’s incredibly important to me and to everyone at YouTube that we grow responsibly,” YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki said at the company’s NewFront last week.

"There isn’t a playbook for how open platforms operate at our scale," she added. "But the way I think about it, it’s critical that we are on the right side of history.”