Google has removed more than 5.200 billion ads from services such as Search Engine, YouTube or Discover in 2022, for being misleading financial ads, containing misleading information or disinformation or inciting violence or denying the existence of tragic events such as those that justify the war in Ukraine.
The technology company has published on Tuesday a new edition of its 'Report on advertising safety', corresponding to the actions of 2022, in which the company indicates that it eliminated 2,000 million more ads than in the previous year.
According to shared figures, it removed more than 5.200 billion ads, restricted more than 4.300 billion and suspended more than 6.7 million advertiser accounts. Google's actions also blocked new ads from appearing on more than 1.500 billion content publisher pages, and implemented website-level measures on more than 143,000 publisher sites.
For this work, Google explains in a press release that it combines the work of a team of human reviewers with automation systems assisted by artificial intelligence and machine learning.
One type of ad the company monitors is the one that promotes financial services. To this end, it has in eleven countries (including Spain) a service that verifies financial services, which requires advertisers to demonstrate that they are authorized by their local regulator to promote their products and services.
Apart from financial scams, it also combats coordinated campaigns, in which malicious actors operate with increasing sophistication and on a larger scale, even using them also for the spread of malware.
In total, in 2022 Google blocked or removed 142 million ads for violating its misleading presentation policy and 198 million ads that did not comply with the financial services policy.
The tech company also fights harmful content and misinformation in its advertising ecosystem. To this end, it explains that it has policies on claims harmful to health, on objectively false statements likely to undermine trust and participation in electoral processes and on climate change denialism.
In 2022 alone, it blocked more than 24 million ads and ads appeared on more than 300,000 publisher pages for violating the aforementioned policies. It also blocked and removed more than 51.2 million ads for inappropriate content (hate speech, violence, and harmful health claims) and another 20.6 million ads for dangerous services or products, such as weapons and explosives.
With regard to electoral processes, Google has expanded the electoral advertising verification and transparency program, with which, for example, they have verified more than 5,900 new ad accounts in the United States and more than 2,300 in Brazil. It also blocked more than 2.6 million ads for election content from advertisers who had failed verification.
WAR IN UKRAINE
Google has also taken steps in response to the war in Ukraine, such as discontinuing the commercial activities of its services in Russia, where they do not show ads or advertising from advertisers domiciled in that country, or the interruption of any monetization of media funded by the Russian government.
Since the beginning of the invasion, Google assures that they have banned any ad aimed at exploiting or reducing the severity of the war or even justifying it. These measures are added to those that were already in force in the services of the technology company, which prohibit content that incites violence or denies the existence of tragic events.
Thus, during the year 2022, Google blocked more than 17 million ads related to the war in Ukraine, and removed from its platforms advertising from more than 275 media sites funded by the Russian government.
According to The Trust Project criteria
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