Sunday 9 July 2023

Twitter allows adverts alongside pictures of animal cruelty and injuries whereas Google does not

Twitter has different policies to Google AdSense on the images and videos which they say are acceptable. And Twitter is a platform for advertisers. Fundamentally there is no difference between Twitter and any other website. There is content in the form of words, images and videos alongside advertising. That applies to all websites with advertising.

Twitter allows adverts alongside pictures of animal cruelty and injuries whereas Google does not
Twitter allows adverts alongside pictures of animal cruelty and injuries whereas Google does not. Image: MikeB

Update: In the Times today, it reports that advertising revenue on Twitter is about 50% less than it was before Musk's buyout and that's partly due to a lack of moderation of tweets as advertisers don't want their adverts to be alongside crappy tweets. Point made.

So why the huge difference in policy between Google AdSense and Twitter? Twitter allows almost anything on animal cruelty. There is too much of it for animal advocates. Certainly, for me. It is horrible. But their advertisers don't complain. There are some really horrendous images which would certainly be in breach of Google AdSense policies on content alongside their adverts.

To be clear: Google won't allow images and videos of animal cruelty and grizzly images of injured animals of the kind you see on Twitter as they are in breach of their policy.

I don't have the answer as to why their policies are so different. Someone has made the better decision but I don't which of the two it is. Perhaps both are wrong.

In order to fight animal cruelty there needs to be some imagery of cruelty against animals to help get the message across. But it is needs to be moderated. Perhaps Google is too strict and Twitter too liberal.

Comments welcome. Sorry, this is so short and inconclusive.

Update: News from The Guardian newspaper:

Twitter faces a landmark legal challenge after the social media giant failed to remove a series of hate-filled tweets reported by users in what could be a turning point in establishing new standards of scrutiny regarding online antisemitism.

Same issue really: unregulated or not moderated adequately. This may be due to Musk sacking thousands of Twitter employees as the business was failing dramatically when he bought it (by mistake!). 

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