Following the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, internet behemoth Google decided to ban political advertising in an attempt to prevent unrest in the U.S.
Now, after a month and a half of bans on ads the company decided it didn’t like, Google has declared that it will accept political advertising once again on its site starting Wednesday, Fortune reported.
But beware anyone out there who might have a mind to cross Google’s intellectual betters and try to place ads that the Alphabet Company’s notoriously left-wing leadership might consider what they now call “fake news” or that might cause someone somewhere to question the validity of our elections or American democracy.
The company made it clear that it will not look kindly on any sort of shenanigans.
“Starting on Wednesday, we will be lifting our Sensitive Events policy to again allow advertisers to run political ads,” the company told Fortune. “We will continue to rigorously enforce our ad policies, which strictly prohibit demonstrably false information that could significantly undermine trust in elections or the democratic process.”
This is the second time since the 2020 election Google has lifted a ban on political advertising. The company first froze such ads right after the election, “saying companies would not be allowed to run messaging that references candidates, the election, or its outcome,” according to Fortune.
Google lifted the ban before the Jan. 6 unrest unfolded.
What about Facebook?
About two months before the 2020 election, Facebook announced that it would throttle back political advertising in the week before Election Day and ban any new ads.
The social media giant also put an outright ban on all political advertising after Nov. 3 — except for a brief exception for the Georgia Senate run-off elections in January.
According to Fortune, Facebook appears to have zero interest in restarting political ads.