Google curbs political messaging

Google has announced it will curb the level of targeting political ads can perform in future. Its new policy will restrict political ads to targeting users via several basic data sets – age, gender, and general location (postal code level).

Adverts will not be able to target users based on public voter records and general political affiliations (left-leaning, right-leaning, and independent).

The self-imposed limits will start in the United Kingdom within a week (ahead of the election on December 12).

Before being rolled out in the European Union by the end of the year, and in the rest of the world starting on January 6 next year.

Google announced its new policy via a blog post, which went on to explain: ‘‘Regardless of the cost or impact to spending on our platforms, we believe these changes will help promote confidence in digital political advertising and trust in electoral processes worldwide.’’

The post continued: ‘‘This will align our approach to election ads with long-established practices in media, such as TV, radio, and print, and result in election ads being more widely seen and available for public discussion.’’

The news comes a couple of weeks after Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey, announced his platform was banning all future political ads.

In a series of tweets, Dorsey explained his decision: ‘‘While internet advertising is incredibly powerful and very effective for commercial advertisers, that power brings significant risks to politics, where it can be used to influence votes to affect the lives of millions.’’

The move will put more pressure on Facebook as it refuses to reform its political ads policy. And it bizarrely doubled down, by stating that it would not fact check adverts by politicians or candidates because their ads were ‘‘newsworthy content’’ that should ‘‘be seen and heard’’.

That’s regardless of whether the ads are accurate, misleading, false or dangerous.

It’s a stance that’s looking increasingly outdated (and moneygrabbing).

‘‘While internet advertising is incredibly powerful and very effective for commercial advertisers, that power brings significant risks to politics, where it can be used to influence votes to affect the lives of millions.’’ Jack Dorsey