A little over a week after announcing a ban on all anti-vax content on YouTube, Google has revealed it is taking a similar stance on climate change denial.
While the anti-vax ban sets out to remove dangerous content from the platform, Google’s new climate change policy focuses more on the monetisation of content through advertising.
Google will now prohibit the monetisation of content that “that contradicts well-established scientific consensus around the existence and causes of climate change” the company said in a blog.
The tech giant said the decision was about improving brand safety for advertisers on the platform.
“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,” Google said.
“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 type of content that will now be demonetised 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.
Like the anti-vax policy, Google says it will take context into consideration before making its final decision, meaning creators can potentially report on or discuss claims about climate change.
Google says it will still allow advertising on topics that discuss climate change-related topics.
