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

engadget.com

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

#21

Post by carpenecopinum »

iLoveOncall wrote: post #2

After living in 2 EU countries and the UK for decades, I don't think I've ever seen a political ad on any Google product (and even overall?). It's probably a very minor impact to Google's ad bottom line.

In a roughly two-week window of not having adblock enabled, I have seen a ton of "politics-adjacent" ads in Germany. They'd usually start off with something that will get right-wing nuts excited ("This Green Party politician ruined their career, learn more.") and will then pivot to some crypto-scam.

I'm wondering if those will be affected by the new ban as well, or if crypto scams aren't political enough to apply.

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

#22

Post by spacebanana7 »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #10
delichon wrote: post #4

Less poltical information from fewer sources equals incumbent protection. This is a regression for democracy and an advance for oligarchy.

"Information" is not what's being presented in YouTube ads. And non-incumbents/non-oligarchs can't afford to run those ads anyways.

It costs as little as $10 a day to run ads on YouTube. Getting results realistically requires higher spend, but a few thousand dollars can make a decent impact.

Whereas traditional ad agencies and TV networks require orders of magnitude more spend to get started. Those are the placements you need oligarchs friends for.

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

#23

Post by anonzzzies »

xena wrote: 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.

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

#24

Post by NeuroCoder »

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?

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

#25

Post by baud147258 »

Aardwolf wrote: post #12
PoignardAzur wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what various countries' norms are, but if people aren't used to political ads and are generally suspicious of the concept, an ad may have negative utility. I know if I saw a paid ad for a candidate that would make me want to vote against them.

Paper flyers in your mailbox, and billboards in people's gardens, are some age-old and very common forms of advertisement during elections I've seen in multiple countries in Europe

At least in France I don't think I've seen either of those. More common are poster stuck on public infrastructure

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

#26

Post by ben_w »

cj wrote: post #7
seumars wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here. I also wonder who would even target their political ads at european audiences.

EU countries have elections, too.

Not sure about the EU-27, but the UK has rules about election ads, to the extent that Cambridge Analytica was a scandal. Some of that scandal was due to bribery and offering prostitutes, but even the aspects that were purely what is considered "normal" for targeting online advertising was unacceptable by UK political standards.

That said, part of the latter being scandalous assumes that they were actually capable of providing the service they claimed, which is something I find myself increasingly unable to believe due to how wildly badly I get categorised by the main advertising platforms — nationality, country of residence, language, gender, all wrong.

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

#27

Post by roenxi »

It is a remarkably complex issue to take a stance on, because most voters don't seem to do any particular research, don't have any understanding of cause-and-effect between policies and outcomes and are easily swayed by lies. Does allowing ad spending on Google push that messy equilibrium towards a better result or a worse result? I contend it is impossible to say with certainty but political ads are likely a net win for voters. They're going to be misinformed by political ads, but also by silence. At least with paid candidate messages they know what the candidates think is popular.

But this is a good outcome for the EU nonetheless because Google is a US company and the EU is based in Europe [0]. EU and US interests don't always align, examples like Nord Stream stick out. Or the trade and tariff battles. Putting US companies in charge of EU political communication seems like insanity.

[0] My alter ego is Captain Obvious

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

#30

Post by spacebanana7 »

x3ro wrote: post #8
delichon wrote: post #4

Less poltical information from fewer sources equals incumbent protection. This is a regression for democracy and an advance for oligarchy.

Interesting, why do you think so? I feel like paid, targeted ads on platforms everyone uses are extremely insidous, because an incumbent or major political party will always have more funds than an e.g. an upstart party, and targeting is generally bad as it's easy to play into people's preconceived notions that way, instead of presenting your position or the change you advocate for. Edit: replaced "incumbent" with "i…

Winning at targeted ads is more of a skill game.

You typically only need a few thousand well placed votes to win an election, and even 100k impressions at $10 CPM is pretty inexpensive.

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