Google restricts political ad targeting as Facebook deliberates
SAN FRANCISCO — Google will restrict how narrowly political advertisers can target voters on the company’s services, putting pressure on Facebook to follow suit.
Starting in January, political advertisers will only be able to target broad categories — gender, age or postal code — not more specific details such as voter records or political leanings, the company said in a blog post.
“Given recent concerns and debates about political advertising, and the importance of shared trust in the democratic process, we want to improve voters’ confidence in the political ads they may see on our ad platforms,” said Scott Spencer, vice president of product management for Google Ads.
The new rules follow Twitter’s decision to ban all political ads starting Friday and come as the industry faces sharp criticism over how precisely these ads are targeted.
Google and Facebook are the two largest online ad platforms in the U.S. and presidential candidates have spent tens of millions of dollars trying to reach voters on them in 2019.
Facebook hasn’t announced any changes to its political ad policies. Earlier this week, Facebook executive Carolyn Everson told attendees at the Recode conference that Facebook would not restrict targeting in political ads. Afterward she clarified to news outlet Axios that Facebook hadn’t ruled out limiting how precisely voters can be targeted using detailed demographic and personal data.
The Trump campaign considers Facebook one of the best ways to directly reach voters rather than relying on traditional media outlets.
Gary Coby, the Trump campaign’s digital director, argued Wednesday against limiting targeting on Facebook and taking away “tools that help us reach more great Americans & lift voices the media & big tech choose to ignore!”
The Trump campaign is the biggest political spender on Facebook, shelling outmore than $15 million on Facebook ads.
“This would unevenly hurt the little guy, smaller voices, & issues the public is not aware of OR news is NOT covering,” Coby said on Twitter.
Under the new rules announced Wednesday, Google also now requires a much broader range of advertisers including state officials and promoters of ballot measures to verify their identity, not just political candidates and elected officials.
The new policy will have broad reach, affecting political ads placed on the Google search engine, video-sharing site YouTube and display ads sold by Google on other websites.
Google also addressed its policy on lies in political ads, explicitly barring any election ad that makes “demonstrably false claims that could significantly undermine participation or trust in an electoral or democratic process.” But, Google said, it expects to take action against a “very limited” number of political ads.
In one highly controversial ad, Trump’s 2020 campaign attacked Democratic presidential hopeful and former Vice President Joe Biden with unfounded claims about his connection to Ukraine. The ads have been viewed millions of times on Google.
