Google Announces New Political Ad Rules to Curb Fake News

As part of its efforts to crevice downwards on false news, conspiracy theories and rampant misinformation campaigns, Google has announced plans to no longer permit 'granular micro-targeted' political ads on its platform. The decision follows recent announcements from the likes of Twitter and Snapchat, both of whom recently announced slightly different plans to try and adjourn the spread of politically-motivated misinformation on their respective platforms.

In an official blog post on Wed, Google said information technology is strengthening its existing ad rules to prohibit all misleading content, including 'deep fakes', or doctored images and videos, on all Google platforms. "It's confronting our policies for any advertiser to make a false claim — whether it's a claim almost the price of a chair or a claim that you tin vote past text message, that election mean solar day is postponed, or that a candidate has died", said the company.

Alongside manipulated media, other examples of banned ad materials include "misleading claims almost the census process, and ads or destinations making demonstrably false claims that could significantly undermine participation or trust in an electoral or autonomous procedure". While the company admitted that it will be incommunicable to root out every unmarried misleading 'claim, counterclaim, and insinuation', it expressed promise that its actions will at to the lowest degree become rid of the ads with clear violations.

Google says it already offers 'advert transparency' in Bharat, the EU and in the U.s. federal elections. Starting Dec 3, the aforementioned policies will also be implemented for all US country-level elections and ballot measures, as well as "ads that mention federal or state political parties, so that all of those ads volition now be searchable and viewable as well".