Google to prohibit ads on content that deny climate change

The policy change will apply to advertisers, publishers and YouTube creators from next month.

October 08, 2021 01:14 pm | Updated 07:21 pm IST

Google to prohibit ads on content that deny climate change.

Google to prohibit ads on content that deny climate change.

Google will prohibit ads and monetisation on content that denies the existence and causes of climate change.

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The policy change will apply to advertisers, publishers and YouTube creators from next month.

Content creators will not be able to earn from content that "contradicts well-established scientific consensus around the existence and causes of climate change".

Content referring to climate change as hoax or scam, and other claims denying global warming and greenhouse gases emissions cannot earn ad revenue under the new policy.

However, Google will allow ads on public debates on climate policy, the varying impacts of climate change, and other new research on the topic.

“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 statement.

“Advertisers simply 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.”

Google explained how it would evaluate content in the new policy. The company said it will look at the context in which claims are made, differentiating between content that states a false claim as fact, versus content that reports on or discusses that claim.

The search giant will use automated tools alongside human reviewers to enforce the policy. Google said it consulted authoritative sources on the topic of climate science, including experts who have contributed to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Assessment Reports.

The move is the second major policy change to tackle fake content. Last week, the company banned vaccine misinformation from YouTube.

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