Climate Change Denial Content Will No Longer Profit From Ads on Youtube The new policy will roll out next month.
By Chloe Arrojado Edited by Jessica Thomas
On Thursday, the Google Ads team announced a new policy for Google advertisers, publishers and YouTube creators that prohibits ads and monetization on content that denies climate change. Applicable content include material that refers to climate change as a hoax or a scam and claims denying that greenhouse gas emissions or human activity contribute to climate change.
Google will start enforcing these policies on its platforms starting in November and will hire outside experts to assess the content, including people who have contributed to United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Assessment Reports.
"As is the case for many of our policies, we'll use a combination of automated tools and human review to enforce this policy against violating publisher content, Google-served ads, and YouTube videos that are monetizing via YouTube's Partner Program," the Google Ads team wrote in its post announcing the change.
Related: 4 Video Platforms Attempting to Challenge YouTube's Dominance
According to the post, the change comes following comments from a growing number of Google advertising and publisher partners, who have "expressed concerns about ads that run alongside or promote inaccurate claims about climate change."
Youtube's demonetization of climate change denial content is the latest move in its efforts to prevent the spread of misinformation. Previously, the platform removed more than 8,000 channels for posting misleading election-related videos.
"We also work to make sure that the line between what is removed and what is allowed is drawn in the right place," the company wrote in a blog post.
Related: 6 More Ways You Can Use YouTube to Reach Your Intended Audience
