Google lifts ban on post-election political ads

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (UPI) — Google told its advertising partners Wednesday it will get rid of its post-election ban on political ads starting Thursday, weeks before U.S. Senate runoff elections in Georgia that will determine control of the body.

The tech giant banned political ads when polls closed Nov. 3 to slow the spread of misinformation about the election. Millions of dollars have already been spent in the crucial Senate runoff races.

That spending, though, has gone to local advertising because of the political ad bans by Google and Facebook. Facebook currently still has a ban in place.

Google said the lifting of its sensitive event policy will allow political ads to be bought across all of its ad-serving platforms, including Google Ads, DV360, YouTube, and AdX Authorized Buyer. Those all fall under the scope of Google’s election ads policy.

Ads that fall under Google’s “election-related” criteria include those that mention a current state or federal officeholder, a candidate, political party, or ballot measure; mention federal or state elections within the ad; and are based on election-related search queries, including on candidates or officeholders.

The tech company said it will still “rigorously enforce” policies that “strictly prohibit demonstrably false information that could significantly undermine trust in elections or the democratic process, among other forms of abuse.”

Reporting by Clyde Hughes

United Press International

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United Press International is an international news agency whose newswires, photo, news film, and audio services provided news material to thousands of newspapers, magazines and radio and television stations for most of the 20th century.

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