Google, YouTube will stop showing ads on content that denies climate change

Abner Li | Oct 7 2021 - 2:00 pm PT

Earlier this week, Google announced a series of features across several products aimed at letting you make more sustainable choices. The company is now following that by prohibiting ads or monetization of content that denies climate change.

Google today issued updated “ads and monetization policies on climate change.” It started by expelling how:

In recent years, 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. Advertisers simply don’t want their ads to appear next to this content. And publishers and creators don’t want ads promoting these claims to appear on their pages or videos.

Starting next month, Google will not allow ads or monetization of content, including videos, that “contradicts well-established scientific consensus around the existence and causes of climate change.” This covers: violating publisher content, Google-served ads, and YouTube videos that are monetizing via YouTube’s Partner Program.

This includes content referring to climate change as a hoax or a scam, claims denying that long-term trends show the global climate is warming, and claims denying that greenhouse gas emissions or human activity contribute to climate change.

Google says it will be “differentiating between content that states a false claim as fact, versus content that reports on or discusses that claim,” with advertising allowed on the latter. The company consulted with experts that contributed to United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Assessment Reports in crafting these updated policies.

We will also continue to allow ads and monetization on other climate-related topics, including public debates on climate policy, the varying impacts of climate change, new research and more.