Google will ban digital ads promoting false claims about climate change from appearing alongside other content, in hopes of limiting revenue for climate change deniers and stopping the spread of misinformation on its platforms.
The company said in a blog post Thursday that the new policy will also apply to YouTube, which last week announced a radical repression of misinformation about vaccines.
“We have heard directly from a growing number of our advertising partners and publishers who have raised concerns about ads running in conjunction with or promoting inaccurate claims about climate change,” Google said. “Advertisers just don’t want their ads to appear alongside this content.
YouTube publishers and creators “do not want ads promoting these claims to appear on their pages or videos,” according to Google.
The restrictions “will prohibit advertisements and monetization of content that contradicts well-established scientific consensus on the existence and causes of climate change,” blog post said.
Limits will be placed on content that calls climate change a hoax or that denies that greenhouse gas emissions and human activity have contributed to long-term global warming.
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Google said it would use automated tools and human reviewers to enforce the policy when it takes effect in November.
The company is one of the two dominant players in the global digital advertising industry, earning $ 147 billion in advertising revenue last year. Facebook, the other big player, bans ads used to spread misinformation, though it doesn’t list specific topics, including climate change denial.
Earlier this week, Google launched new features aimed at helping users reduce their carbon footprints, including a search feature that shows which flights have the least emissions.
Reference-www.nationalobserver.com