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Google Will Start Demonetizing YouTube Videos That Deny Climate Change
10 Oct, 2021 / 05:09 AM / OMNES Media LLC

Source: https://in.mashable.com/

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The decision comes amid increasing pressure to tackle climate change misinformation on the world’s largest video platform.

YouTube’s parent company, Google has announced that it will start demonetizing content on the platform that includes climate change denial, and limit monetization tools to creators who post such videos.

The major change in the company’s ad policy comes amid increasing pressure to tackle misinformation about climate change on arguable the largest video platform in the world.

As the world continues to be battered by an increasing number of extreme weather events caused by climate change, scientists and activists have been increasing urging more concrete action to both tackle climate change as well as misinformation.

“In recent years, we’ve heard directly from a growing number of our advertising and publisher partners who have expressed concerns about ads that run alongside or promote inaccurate claims about climate change,” the company said in a statement. “Advertisers simply don’t want their ads to appear next to this content. And publishers and creators don’t want ads promoting these claims to appear on their pages or videos.”

Content that includes claims that climate change is a scam or a hoax, or which deny “well-established scientific consensus” proving that the earth is warming up, or those that claim carbon emissions from human activities such as burning fossil fuels or producing meat do not contribute to climate change will be demonetized under the new guidelines.

Google already restricts monetization for certain types of content, such as videos featuring firearms, and tragic events, according to the New York Times. Early last month, the company also announced that it will ban all types of content that feature anti-vaccine rhetoric.

The new rules concerning climate change were drafted with consultation from authoritative sources, according to the company, and will apply to google ads served as part of the YouTube Partner Program. However, the tech giant hasn’t made it clear whether it will remove the content entirely from the platform like it chose to do with vaccine-denial content.