Starting next month, Google will begin restricting and blocking health crisis content that is contrary to scientific views, published through their advertising platforms and programs.
The company is already blocking advertisements and published material containing dangerous and harmful claims about disease prevention and unreasonable remedies and cures, including calls for refusal of vaccinations and recommended treatments.
Google is taking the next step by updating its advertiser and creator policies by banning statements such as "The COVID-19 vaccine is designed to genetically modify the world's population."
CEO of Google Inc. Sundar Pichai.
Next month, Google will begin blocking users and resources, prohibiting the use of the company's advertising platform to display ads, in one way or another, promoting the COVID-19 conspiracy theory. Ads that directly promote such theories will also be blocked. In cases where a specific resource crosses a certain threshold level by publishing material that contradicts the new company policy, Google will block the entire site, completely restricting the resource from using the company's advertising platforms.
Alphabet, a holding company owned by Google, is already blocking advertisements containing dangerous claims about disease prevention and unwarranted cures, including calls for not using vaccines or recommended forms and remedies. Now, the company is taking it to a higher level by blocking ads and content that oppose established scientific theories. Also, materials containing conspiracy theories, claiming, for example, that vaccines are designed to genetically modify the Earth's population, or, for example, that Bill Gates created COVID-19, or that the virus is a biological weapon created in a Chinese laboratory, will also be blocked.
Google generated approximately $ 135 billion in ad revenue in 2019, including through programs such as Ad Sense and Ad Manager, which allow approved sites to run programmable ads on their properties to profit from working with Google. About 15% of Google's revenue in the first quarter came from Google Network Members, and above all, citing the company's annual report, from sites powered by Ad Mob, Ad Sense, and Google Ad Manager.
The changes are due to take effect on August 18, and advertisements will be removed from both individual articles and entire resources. With regard to the second case, it is argued that we are talking mainly about the percentage excess of violations of the company's policy, after which the resource will be completely deprived of monetization. (Violation of some rules, such as the publication of material about child sexual harassment, is considered by the company as completely unacceptable, and may lead to an immediate decision on the status of a particular resource).
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The news emerged in the same week that CNBC first announced that Google had resumed advertising on the Zero Hedge financial market site. In mid-June, Google announced that it was suing Zero Hedge over a comment section on the site, which Google reported regularly violates the company's dangerous and offensive content policy. Also, according to Google representatives, Zero Hedge filed an appeal against the demonetization decision after it removed the designated content and added a comment moderation function.