According to The Washington Post, Google was alerted to ads that contained misleading information about the difference between absentee voting and mail-in voting. It took Google five days to determine that it would allow the ads to remain, despite the fact that Facebook removed similar ads from the same group.
The ads direct users to the website protectmyvote.com, which, say experts who were interviewed by The Washington Post, contain false information about voting by mail. When questioned by The Washington Post, a Google spokesperson declined to answer specific questions about the ads or explain how they complied with the company's policies. In contrast, Facebook stated it removed similar ads because of the "voter suppression tactics" used on protectmyvote.com.
The Post article goes on to quote Shannon C. McGregor, an assistant professor of political communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: "This is a really worrying warning sign. On its face, this is misleading users about the voting process. And if that's what these platforms want to protect against, then this is the type of ad they should remove."
Originally published by Frankfurt Kurnit, August 2020
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