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Right off the back of banning all misinformation around vaccines on YouTube, Google has taken another step towards demonetizing content that promotes bogus claims about climate change.
In an announcement on October 7, Google explained that it won't allow advertising to run alongside any content that contradicts the “well-established scientific consensus around the existence and causes of climate change.” The move will also see the demonetization of videos on the Google-owned platform YouTube that promote misinformation on climate change. The content will remain viewable, but the creator will not be able to earn money from views or clicks.
“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 said.
The policy will come into action next month. Google said it reached this decision after consulting with many “authoritative sources” in the field of climate science, including scientists who worked on the United Nations IPCC climate assessment reports.
Though a step in the right direction, it doesn't appear to be a purely benevolent effort to curb misinformation and conspiracy theories. It sounds like Google has another motive in mind: profits. Some of Google’s big advertising clients have expressed concerns that their commercials may be running alongside, and thus could be associated with, dubious information about climate change. Climate change denial is not a good look, it seems.
“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,” the Google announcement reads.
Cynicism aside, Google has made strong commitments to make the company itself more sustainable. The tech giant has been carbon neutral since 2007 and hopes to be the first major company to operate carbon-free by 2030, with the aim of running all its data centers on carbon-free renewable energy in the next few years.
YouTube has taken further steps to combat scientific misinformation recently. Just this week, the video streaming giant announced a major crackdown on videos that spread vaccine misinformation on its platform. YouTube had previously blocked any COVID-19 anti-vaccine misinformation, but it has now broadened this policy to include any commonly used vaccines, a move that resulted in deleting the accounts of several high-profile anti-vaccine activists.
Many are now looking towards other Internet giants to see what steps they may take in the battle against online misinformation. Your move, Facebook.
