YouTube has disabled comments on videos featuring minors, following a magazine report that the platform displayed ads next to videos that showed exploitation of children.

"Over the past week, we disabled comments from tens of millions of videos that could be subject to predatory behavior," YouTube said in a blog post.

“We will be broadening this action to suspend comments on videos featuring young minors and videos featuring older minors that could be at risk of attracting predatory behavior,” YouTube added.

The report by Wired magazine said that commercials ran alongside offensive videos and comments prompted companies such as food and beverage maker Nestle SA and carrier AT&T Inc to pause advertising on YouTube earlier this week.

“While we have been removing hundreds of millions of comments for violating our policies, we had been working on an even more effective classifier, that will identify and remove predatory comments,” YouTube said.

Several large advertisers, including AT&T Inc. and Kellogg Co., pulled spending from YouTube last week after comments on the service were used to identify video clips of young girls participating in activities such as posing in front of a mirror and doing gymnastics.