Google has decided not to run ads with content that “contradicts the established scientific consensus on the existence and causes of climate change.”
The solution affects YouTube, advertisers and publishers. This seems to be primarily a matter of trade, not conscience: adtech suffocating vine there is in a frame the decision as a change in advertising and its revenue policy.
“In recent years, we’ve heard directly from a growing number of our advertising and publishing partners who have expressed concern about ads running together or promoting inaccurate claims of climate change,” the Google message said. “Advertisers just don’t want their ads to appear next to this content. And publishers and creators don’t want ads promoting these claims to appear on their pages or videos.”
Therefore, the new policy, which will prohibit the display of advertisements in content that suggests that climate change is a fraud, deception or denies that human activity contributes. Ads offering any of the above will also be banned.
Google says it will “carefully consider the context in which claims are made, distinguishing between content that states a false statement as fact from content that reports or discusses that claim.
“We will also continue to allow advertising and revenue generation on other climate-related topics, including public debates on climate policy, the various impacts of climate change, new research, and more.”
Google said it had “consulted with reputable sources on climate science, including experts who contributed to the establishment of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Assessment Reports” to help shape its policies.
Their recommendations will be implemented using a “combination of automated tools and human review” to evaluate content and ads.
But Google did not explain how the evaluation process would work.
The register expects this, and quickly, in response to the change we’ve seen on social media, is already criticizing Google’s position as another example of Big Tech effectively becoming an arbiter of acceptable public speaking.
Here is another point of view.
The best thing Google can do about climate change is to close its data centers.
– PhotonTurtle ???? (@ThePhotonTurtle) October 7, 2021
Others say Google has been making money from such content for years.
It is also easy to find supportive feelings about change.
One thing is for sure: this change will provoke weeks of arguments for a cultural war that will make a lot of warmth but very little light and will change almost no one’s opinion. ®
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