Google To Ban Advertisers & Publishers Who Make False Claims On Climate Change

Google announced that starting on December 6, 2021 it will ban and prohibit climate change deniers from advertising or being publishers or creators on its network. Google said it is “announcing a new monetization policy for Google advertisers, publishers and YouTube creators that will prohibit ads for, and monetization of, content that contradicts well-established scientific consensus around the existence and causes of climate change.”

This includes content referring to climate change as a hoax or a scam, claims denying that long-term trends show the global climate is warming, and claims denying that greenhouse gas emissions or human activity contribute to climate change, the search company explained.

How will Google evaluate the content? Google said “when evaluating content against this new policy, we’ll look carefully 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.” “We will also continue to allow ads and monetization on other climate-related topics, including public debates on climate policy, the varying impacts of climate change, new research and more,” Google wrote.

Google consults with “authoritative sources” on client science and has experts from the UN intergovernmental panel on client change assessment reports involved on some level.

Google is using both automated tools and human review to enforce this across publisher content, Google-served ads, and YouTube videos that are monetizing via YouTube’s Partner Program.

Google posted enforcement will begin on December 6th, saying “the Google Ads Unreliable claims policy will be updated to include a new policy prohibiting content that features claims about climate change which run contrary to scientific consensus.”

Violations of this policy will not lead to immediate Google Ads account suspension without prior warning. A warning will be issued, at least 7 days, prior to any suspension of your account, Google said.

Forum discussion at Twitter.