Google moved on Tuesday to protect its lucrative advertising business by giving marketers greater control over where their ads appear online, after major clients withdrew spots that were shown next to hate speech and other offensive material.
“Recently, we had a number of cases where brands’ ads appeared on content that was not aligned with their values. For this, we deeply apologize,” Philipp Schindler, Google’s chief business officer, wrote in a blog post on Tuesday. “We know that this is unacceptable to the advertisers and agencies who put their trust in us.”
n a recent study in Germany, the company was found to have removed 90 percent of posts flagged as potential hate speech after it had been reported. That figure was markedly higher than those of Facebook and Twitter.
Google’s stance has come under increased scrutiny in recent months with the rise of so-called fake news and with hate speech connected to elections in the United States, Europe and elsewhere.
