Google took a big step towards political censorship Thursday when it announced a new policy designed to prevent climate change deniers from making money on its platforms.
The policy prohibits “ads for, and monetization of, content that contradicts well-established scientific consensus around the existence and causes of climate change,” wrote Google in a blog post.
“In recent years, 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 clams about climate change,” said Google’s ad team. “Advertisers simply don’t want their ads to appear next to this content.”
What this means is that publishers and YouTube video creators who question or deny global warming won’t be able to make money or promote their content using ads. Eventually, these people will stop producing content and you won’t see anyone questioning climate change online.
Remember in 2016 when Google skewed its search results to promote favorable content about Hillary Clinton and unfavorable content about Donald Trump? This is far worse than that.
Google’s new policy has nothing to do with global warming and everything to do with free speech. What we’re seeing here is the world’s most popular search engine banning content simply because it doesn’t like it.
With more than 80% of the world’s search market share, Google could easily influence public opinion and is likely already doing so. This must be stopped before it gets out of hand.
The policy regarding climate change goes into effect for publishers in November and for advertisers in December.
Sources:
Google to Ban Ads Appearing Next to Climate Denial Content
Google cracks down on climate change denial by targeting ads