Google cracking down on climate change denial ads

LONDON — Google is cracking down on digital ads promoting false climate change claims or being used to make money from such content, hoping to limit revenue for climate change deniers and stop the spread of misinformation on its platforms.

The company said Thursday in a blog post that the new policy will also apply to YouTube, which last week announced a sweeping crackdown of vaccine misinformation.

“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 claims about climate change,” Google said.

Publishers and creators on YouTube “don’t want ads promoting these claims to appear on their pages or videos,” according to Google.

The restrictions “will prohibit ads for, and monetization of, content that contradicts well-established scientific consensus around the existence and causes of climate change,” the blog post said.

Along with addressing publishers’ frustrations, the changes are also apparently intended to counter online influencers who monetize, or make money from, YouTube videos promoting climate change denial theories by putting ads on them.

Limits will be placed on content calling climate change a hoax or denying that greenhouse gas emissions and human activity have contributed to the earth’s long-term warming, the company said.

Experts questioned whether the changes would be effective.

“How will they determine what is misinformation (i.e. lies) or simply incomplete or misleading information?,” questioned Lisa Schipper, environmental social science research fellow at the University of Oxford’s Environmental Change Institute.