BRITAIN: Google Bans “Deceptive” Tory Election Ads

The Independent reports:

Google has banned eight different adverts paid for by the Conservatives over the last month because they broke its rules, The Independent can reveal. The move by the search giant comes amid mounting concerns about the Tories’ use of disinformation and fake news as campaigning tools at the general election. Transparency data released by the search giant this week shows that the adverts “violated Google’s advertising policies” and had been removed.

Six of the banned adverts were put up by the Tories on the day of the Labour manifesto launch – when the Conservative Party set up a fake website called labourmanifesto.co.uk purporting to contain the opposition’s policies. During that incident, the Tories paid Google to push its fake version of the Labour manifesto to the top of search results for those searching for the deal document.