Google has promised a wide-ranging overhaul of its advertising policies in response to a growing boycott of the company’s platforms from leading brands and advertisers including the UK government, Marks & Spencer and McDonald’s.
In a blogpost published on Monday night, Philipp Schindler, the company’s chief business officer, wrote: “We have strict policies that define where Google ads should appear, and in the vast majority of cases, our policies and tools work as intended. But at times we don’t get it right.
“Recently, we had a number of cases where brands’ ads appeared on content that was not aligned with their values. For this, we deeply apologise.”
Many of the companies involved in the boycott had discovered that their advertising spend was being used to place banner adverts over YouTube videos from groups such as Britain First, indirectly funding extremists and damaging the prestige of their brands.
In response, Schindler has promised a three-tier overhaul of Google’s advertising policies, both on YouTube and on the company’s wider ad products.
My favorite part of this article is that it mentions Breitbart specifically as being the source of fake news and racism.
Hopefully with Google and Facebook now taking ownership of their part in disseminating disinformation and hatred we will soon see a dramatic change in the ability of certain sites to spread racism, homophobia, and misogyny.
And wouldn't that be nice?
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