• by Laurie Sullivan , July 2, 2024

Google Political Content Policy updates now cover digitally manipulated or synthetic content in audio, pictures, and videos, as advertising platforms and agencies release partnerships, services and technology to support campaigns exploding across digital media.

The initial update is only for YouTube, but the industry could see the company roll out the policy company-wide.

Advertisers are now required to disclose election ads that contain synthetic or digitally altered content that inauthentically depicts real or realistic-looking people or events by selecting the checkbox in the “Altered or synthetic content” section in the campaign settings.

The Biden campaign and affiliated campaign groups have spent about $147 million on television, radio and digital ads so far in this election cycle -- nearly double the $85 million spent by the Trump campaign and affiliated groups, according to a Financial Times analysis of AdImpact data.

Google became responsible in July for generating the disclosure for certain ad formats.

The checked box indicates that Google will generate the in-ad disclosure, eliminating the need for advertisers to create their own.

The disclosure will appear in feeds and shorts on mobile phones, as well as in-stream ads running on computers, mobile phones, the mobile web, and television screens.

For all other formats, the advertiser is responsible for selecting the checkbox and providing a clear and concise disclosure placed in a location visible by users.

Acceptable disclosure language will vary depending on the specific context of the ad, but some examples may include notices that read or say that the content is altered or synthetic content, the audio was computer generated, this image does not depict real events, or this video content was synthetically generated.

Google’s change is part of the company’s restricted ads content policies based on local and regional restrictions. During an election period, for example, certain political ads are not permitted to serve in Canada.