Dutch YouTube vloggers have new advertising code

DutchNews, November 17, 2017

A group of Dutch YouTube vloggers will now report clearly when content is advertised, as part of a voluntary code they launched on Friday. 

De Social Code – developed ‘for and by YouTubers’ – has four simple guidelines on making it clear when videos are sponsored, involve product placement or free samples, or are entirely independent content.

Last year the Dutch Media Authority announced that it wanted to ban illicit advertising in vlogs, especially when aimed at children, reported RTL broadcaster at the time. 

Laws regulating online content in the same way as television and radio are being developed, according to the vloggers who developed the new code in coordination with the Dutch Media Authority. 

People who have signed up already include Teske de Schepper (Teske), Dylan Haegens, Djamila (Meisje Djamila), Rutger Vink (Furtjuh) and Christiaan Heinen (Prankster), according to ANP. 

‘These YouTubers are demonstrating through this form of self-regulation that they feel a sense of responsibility to their viewers’, Dutch Media Authority chairman Madeleine de Cock Buning told ANP.