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Google will stop serving political ads in the EU, including on YouTube

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Re: Google will stop serving political ads in the EU, including on YouTube

#31
post #15

YouTube creators are going to be upset by this, political ads in election years have a CPM of upwards of $5. It makes up a lot of their income.

Sure, but feeding impressionable people garbage which then gets them to vote squarely against their own interests is worse than creators making a bit less.

[flagged]

Re: Google will stop serving political ads in the EU, including on YouTube

#32

I wish they'd stop serving scams too. I keep seeing shit like "make 75,000 using Ethereum and ChatGPT"

And "a propos of nothing, would you like to see this political fringe/crank/"angle"/plain lies content?"

Since YouTube started to take disabled tracking seriously, I guess I see what it tends to suggest to Joe Shmoe, and it's not good - not for Joe and for sure not for social cohesion.

Re: Google will stop serving political ads in the EU, including on YouTube

#33

I wish they'd stop serving scams too. I keep seeing shit like "make 75,000 using Ethereum and ChatGPT"

My current YouTube is full of self help gurus, ads for funeral insurance, tampons and ground to air anti aircraft missile systems.

Re: Google will stop serving political ads in the EU, including on YouTube

#34

I wish they'd stop serving scams too. I keep seeing shit like "make 75,000 using Ethereum and ChatGPT"

And "a propos of nothing, would you like to see this political fringe/crank/"angle"/plain lies content?" Since YouTube started to take disabled tracking seriously, I guess I see what it tends to suggest to Joe Shmoe, and it's not good - not for Joe and for sure not for social cohesion.

I was sure there was EU laws as well as big tech policies against misinformation / fake news nowadays, maybe I was wrong, maybe there's no oversight, or maybe money trumps principles/laws. I'm disappointed, given that it's no secret that foreign interests (e.g. Russia) are funding / pushing these divisive misinformation campaigns.

Ironically, me saying it's Russia pushing divisive campaigns is in itself a divisive statement to make, therefore, mission successful?

Re: Google will stop serving political ads in the EU, including on YouTube

#35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but feeding impressionable people garbage which then gets them to vote squarely against their own interests is worse than creators making a bit less.

[flagged]

Did you forget a "/s" or is that your genuine belief / political stance?

Re: Google will stop serving political ads in the EU, including on YouTube

#36

Article says this has been done other places already. Has this specifically been campaign ads or does it also involve things that are considered politically motivated messaging? For example, is there danger of vaccination PSAs getting banned because some politicians say bizarre things about them?

I would hope so. The government paying private companies to spread its propaganda is bad for many reasons.

Re: Google will stop serving political ads in the EU, including on YouTube

#38

I wish they'd stop serving scams too. I keep seeing shit like "make 75,000 using Ethereum and ChatGPT"

My current YouTube is full of self help gurus, ads for funeral insurance, tampons and ground to air anti aircraft missile systems.

You must have a very interesting watch history

Re: Google will stop serving political ads in the EU, including on YouTube

#39

I wish they'd stop serving scams too. I keep seeing shit like "make 75,000 using Ethereum and ChatGPT"

Scams in online advertising are ubiquitous, I'm amazed adtech companies don't seem to see any consequences for it. I really think there needs to be an onus on online advertisers to prove that the products and services they promote are not scams before anything gets exposed to the public.

I see adblockers as essential security tools at this point, however you dress it up one of the main functions of adtech in the present seems to be connecting literal conmen with their marks as efficiently as possible.

Re: Google will stop serving political ads in the EU, including on YouTube

#40
post #14

I wonder if recent propaganda around war is part of this block?

I don’t think so, this is not new.

At least in France there are rules regarding political spending and advertising. The basic idea is that even with an unlimited amount of money, you are not allowed to buy significantly more tv time than your opponents, campaign spending is capped etc. Since 2021 that’s what google does for France : no ads about a debate of general interest three months before an election.

On tv it’s manageable : there are not many channels, and everything is declared, at worse just have a bunch of people watch and report. I understand that google can’t deal with this automatically.

I am not saying it necessarily works well in practice, just that it’s not a new idea.

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