Until now, the company has been running only some governmental ads. Because of this, it was accused of shielding Donald Trump
Google will allow coronavirus mentions in its ads prioritizing companies and organizations battling the issue. This decision is announced in a memo that Google has sent out to its political advertising clients.
Government entities, hospitals, medical providers, and non-governmental organizations will be able to launch ads that address COVID-19. The company is also planning to add political organizations to the list.
With these new rules, Google responds to recent critics from the Democrats: political opponents of Donald Trump argued that the company was shielding his campaign.
That’s because Google allowed promotions on White House battling against COVID-19 outbreak, but banned Democrats’ ads that criticized that approach.
“Currently we do not allow such ads to run under our Sensitive Events policy, which is designed to protect users by blocking ads that try to capitalize on short-term events like natural disasters. However, coronavirus has become an ongoing and important part of everyday conversation, including a relevant topic in political discourse”, said Google’s head of industry for elections, Mark Beatty.
The company has promised to phase in new advertisers to the list and announce the plan for ads from political organizations in the coming days.
Twitter has also renewed its policy and lift the coronavirus-related ad ban, reports AdAge. However, the platform says it will control the process: coronavirus can be mentioned only by the brands that communicate directly with the Twitter marketing team.
