Google Stops Serving Ads, and Google is cracking down on digital ads promoting false climate change claims or being used to make money from such content, hoping to limit revenue for climate change deniers and stop the spread of misinformation on its platforms.
The company said Thursday in a blog post that the new policy will also apply to YouTube, which last week announced a sweeping crackdown of vaccine misinformation.
“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. “Advertisers don’t want their ads to appear next to this content.
Publishers and creators on YouTube “don’t want ads promoting these claims to appear on their pages or videos,” according to Google.
Google Stops Serving Ads
Google on Thursday said it would no longer post ads next to misinformation about climate change on its search engine or global video-sharing platform YouTube.
The new policy for Google advertisers, publishers, and YouTube creators will prohibit the platforms from helping people make money from content that “contradicts well-established scientific consensus around the existence and causes of climate change.”
That includes online content referring to climate change as a hoax or a scam or denying the world’s temperature is rising. That human activity is contributing to the problem, Google said in a post.
“Advertisers simply don’t want their ads to appear next to this content,” Google said.
The internet giant added that the policy change aligns with efforts by the company to promote sustainable practices and confront climate change.
“Google’s important decision to demonetize climate misinformation could turn the tide on the climate denial economy,” said NGO Avaaz campaign director Fadi Quran.
“For years, climate misinformers have confused public opinion and obstructed urgent political action on climate change, and YouTube has been one of their weapons of choice.”
Quran urged other online platforms to follow Google’s lead and stop funneling money to those peddling debunked denials of climate change.
Publishers and creators on YouTube “don’t want ads promoting these claims to appear on their pages or videos,” according to Google.
The restrictions “will prohibit ads for, and monetization of, content that contradicts well-established scientific consensus around the existence and causes of climate change,” the blog post said.
However, such debates can be just as polarized, warned Steve Smith, executive director of Oxford’s Net Zero climate neutrality research program and CO2RE research hub on greenhouse gas removal.
“Misinformation is at play in online discussions around low-carbon energy, travel, and food, just as much as it is over climate science,” Smith said.
Google is one of the two dominant players in the global digital ad industry, earning $147 billion in ad revenue last year. The other big player, Facebook, prohibits ads from spreading misinformation though it doesn’t list specific topics, including climate change denial.
The Bottom Line
Earlier this week, Google rolled out new features aimed at helping users reduce their carbon footprints, including a search function that shows which flights have lower emissions.
Misinformation and social media companies giants have in amplifying it has become a big concern for many people. Some 95% of Americans said misinformation is a problem when trying to access important information, according to a poll Friday from The Pearson Institute and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
Facebook’s problem with false information came into the spotlight this week when Frances Haugen, a former data scientist turned whistleblower, told members of Congress that the company knows its platform spreads misinformation but refuses to make changes that could hurt its profits.
