Facebook said two days ago that it would ban political ads on election night declaring unofficial outcome of the polls. The move will prevent political advertisers from running ads on the platform starting on November 4, claiming victory ahead of the official results.
Today, Google told advertisers that it is following suit, as per Axios. The search giant sent out emails to its advertisers to inform them of the upcoming restriction. Google said in its email that it will block ads "referencing candidates, the election, or its outcome, given that an unprecedented amount of votes will be counted after election day this year".
The restriction will apply to ads that run through Google Ads, DV360, YouTube, and AdX Authorized Buyer. It comes just a day after YouTube introduced changes to its platform to provide authoritative voting information to users when they browse content regarding the 2020 U.S. presidential or federal Congressional candidates.
Google also informed advertisers that they can expect delays of up to 48 hours to the approval process due to an increase in the number of submissions for election ads. The ban is expected to end at least seven days after the election day, although a number of factors could be taken into consideration before it is lifted.
It complements Google's measures, announced earlier this year, meant to protect the U.S. elections on November 3 from misinformation campaigns. These include fighting deep fake photos on the web, combating phishing emails, and removing videos from YouTube that aim to mislead voters.
Source: Axios
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