Google’s Updated Political Ads Policy Puts Pressure on Facebook

Google has announced plans to restrict political advertising on its platforms ahead of the UK General Election and next year’s US Presidential election, in a move which will further turn the heat up on Facebook.

Although the web giant claimed that it never allows controversial micro-targeting of election ads, it announced a further clarification of its policy on Wednesday to limit election ad targeting to “age, gender, and general location.”

It’s also explicitly banning deep fake content, misleading claims about the election process, and “ads or destinations making demonstrably false claims that could significantly undermine participation or trust in an electoral or democratic process.”

“Whether you’re running for office or selling office furniture, we apply the same ads policies to everyone; there are no carve-outs,” argued Google Ads VP of product management, Scott Spencer.

“It’s against our policies for any advertiser to make a false claim — whether it's a claim about the price of a chair or a claim that you can vote by text message, that election day is postponed, or that a candidate has died.”

That appears to put more distance between Google and Facebook, whose stance is that tech firms should not be the arbiters of what politicians can and can’t say — despite it having strict rules on false advertising elsewhere on its platform.

This position has invited heavy criticism from various quarters as tantamount to allowing politicians to lie — especially after Facebook rejected a request from ..

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