There are thousands of videos that claim Climate Change is a hoax, or that it is a conspiracy. Google-owned YouTube will now start denying monetization for content that climate change deniers create.
Google has confirmed that YouTube will no longer allow ads or monetization for content that promotes climate change denialism. The company will deploy AI-based detection mechanisms and also rely on human moderation.
Google announces tougher policy against Climate Change ‘Deniers’:
Social Media platforms have always been a great platform to gain information, and share personal views. However, several miscreants, as well as sponsored agencies, often misuse these platforms to run misinformation campaigns.
YouTube has undoubtedly been one of the most misused, abused, and exploited mediums to spread hatred, propaganda, and well-polished lies. Google has long been fighting such users, and the content they create.
Google will prevent climate change deniers from making money from adshttps://t.co/SlQsO5RdO7
— Greta Thunberg News (@great_thunberg) October 7, 2021
The search giant is now taking on climate change denialism. At its simplest, it is a form of misinformation campaign carefully designed to deny climate change is real. The content, often in form of videos, uses cherry-picked data, manipulated statistics, and other components to downplay or deny climate change.
Google will ban ads and stop funding media that contradict scientific consensus on climate change https://t.co/129eEZdKKE
— Bloomberg (@business) October 7, 2021
Google has confirmed that it would no longer allow ads or monetization for content that promotes climate change denialism. The new policy will apply to publishers, advertisers, and YouTube creators.
The crowd-sourced video sharing platform will rely on a blend of algorithmic detection and human moderation to enforce its new policy. This new policy should go into effect starting next month.
Google will deny monetization to climate change deniers primarily because advertisers aren’t comfortable with the association?
YouTube has one of the most optimized and “intelligent” Artificial Intelligence. The algorithms are already powerful enough to quickly spot copyright infringement. In fact, in several cases, YouTube spots a violation during the creation or upload process.
The Google Ads team reportedly indicated that the policy change reflects the desires of advertisers. They “simply don’t want their ads to appear next to this content.” Interestingly, even creators and publishers don’t want ads pushing climate denialism on their videos, claims Google.
Google said it will no longer display advertisements on YouTube videos and other content that promote inaccurate claims about climate change. https://t.co/V7rHpORwxt
— The New York Times (@nytimes) October 7, 2021
The new policy does appear straightforward. Google won’t allow videos that have “content referring to climate change as a hoax or a scam, claims to deny 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 adding dedicated ‘climate change’ Search page, EV research tools, & Shopping suggestions https://t.co/30NIuAwenR by @technacity pic.twitter.com/r4NXMvRgNf
— 9to5Google.com (@9to5Google) October 6, 2021
Simply put, Google seems to agree that Climate Change is an undeniable and irrefutable fact. Moreover, the advertisers that Google works with, share the same opinion.
Interestingly, there are tons of “scholarly” articles that actively deny Climate Change is manmade. Hence, it will be interesting to see how Google’s strong stand in support of evidence about Climate Change, reverberates with YouTube content creators and subscribers.