POLICY
POLICY
POLICY
Google, YouTube to target ads promoting climate change misinformation
Google LLC announced late Thursday that will ban digital ads promoting misinformation about climate change and the monetization of such content with the aim to limit the spread of climate change denial on its platforms.
The new policies affect Google advertisers, publishers and YouTube creators and will prohibit ads for, and make money from, content that contradicts well-established scientific consensus around the causes of climate change. That includes referring to climate change as a hoax or a scam.
“In recent years, we’ve heard directly from a growing number of our advertising and publisher partners who have expressed concerns about ads that run alongside or promote inaccurate claims about climate change,” Google said in a blog post outlining the policy changes. “Advertisers simply don’t want their ads to appear next to this content.”
According to Google, the company will “look carefully at the context in which claims are made” by “differentiating between content that states a false claim as fact, verses the content that reports on or discusses that claim.” Importantly, ads and monetization will be permitted on climate-related topics, including public debates on climate policy, impacts of climate change, new research and more.
To create parameters for the policy, Google said that it consulted experts on climate science, including experts who contributed to reports for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The same reports revealed that human emissions of greenhouse gases have been “unequivocal” causes of global warming.
The company said it intends to use a combination of automated tools and human review to enforce the policy against violating publisher content, Google-served ads and YouTube videos in the Partner Program.
This policy announcement follows Google mass banning anti-vaccination accounts from YouTube in an attempt to curb COVID-19 misinformation.
The new policy takes effect in November for publishers and YouTube creators and in December for advertisers.
Image: Photopin
A message from John Furrier, co-founder of SiliconANGLE:
Support our mission to keep content open and free by engaging with theCUBE community. Join theCUBE’s Alumni Trust Network, where technology leaders connect, share intelligence and create opportunities.
- 15M+ viewers of theCUBE videos, powering conversations across AI, cloud, cybersecurity and more
- 11.4k+ theCUBE alumni — Connect with more than 11,400 tech and business leaders shaping the future through a unique trusted-based network.
About SiliconANGLE Media
SiliconANGLE Media is a recognized leader in digital media innovation, uniting breakthrough technology, strategic insights and real-time audience engagement. As the parent company of SiliconANGLE, theCUBE Network, theCUBE Research, CUBE365, theCUBE AI and theCUBE SuperStudios — with flagship locations in Silicon Valley and the New York Stock Exchange — SiliconANGLE Media operates at the intersection of media, technology and AI.
Founded by tech visionaries John Furrier and Dave Vellante, SiliconANGLE Media has built a dynamic ecosystem of industry-leading digital media brands that reach 15+ million elite tech professionals. Our new proprietary theCUBE AI Video Cloud is breaking ground in audience interaction, leveraging theCUBEai.com neural network to help technology companies make data-driven decisions and stay at the forefront of industry conversations.
