Google will start vetoing political ads in searches and YouTube after TSE electoral rule

RENATA GALF
SÃO PAULO, SP (FOLHAPRESS)

Google announced that it will update its policies to stop allowing political ads to be broadcast in Brazil via Google Ads, which includes YouTube, search results and other types of advertising contracted by the company’s tool.

In a note, the company says that this update “will take place in May with a view to the entry into force of electoral resolutions for 2024”.

Approved at the end of February, the resolution of the TSE (Superior Electoral Court), among other provisions, made it mandatory for platforms to have libraries of advertisements for political electoral content. This resolution also provides that this measure is “permanently enforceable, including in non-election years and pre- and post-election periods”.

Furthermore, it also prohibited companies that sell any type of content promotion from making “this service available for broadcasting a notoriously untrue or seriously decontextualized fact that could affect the integrity of the electoral process”.

In this case, the resolution also says that, when this type of content has been promoted “irregularly”, the Electoral Court may determine that the platforms broadcast, “by promotion and at no cost”, informative content that elucidates a notoriously untrue fact “in same format and scope of contracting”.

“For this year’s Brazilian elections, we will update our Google Ads political content policy to no longer allow political ads to run in the country. This update will take place in May with a view to the entry into force of electoral resolutions for 2024”, says a note from Google.

“We are globally committed to supporting the integrity of elections and will continue to engage with authorities regarding this matter,” the note adds.

In 2022, Google included Brazil among the countries that had transparency reports about political ads on their platforms. The company followed its own classification criteria, providing, for example, only the dissemination of candidates at the federal level initially, and later including the state level

With the new Electoral Court rule, the availability refers to “people holding elected positions, candidates” and includes more categories, such as “government proposals, bills, exercise of the right to vote and other political rights or related matters to the electoral process.”