Google to lift post-election political advertisement ban

 Alphabet’s Google will lift its temporary ban on election-related advertisements on Thursday, it said Wednesday.

Google’s pause of election ads, which came into effect after polls closed in the US presidential election Nov. 3, was one of its measures to combat misinformation and other abuses on its site.

It was part of its “sensitive events” policy, which seeks to prohibit content that potentially capitalizes on events like public health emergencies or natural disasters.

The company said in an email to advertisers seen by Reuters that “we no longer consider the post-election period to be a sensitive event.”

Major online platforms have been under pressure to police misinformation about the election on their sites, which continued t🐻o proliferate on social media after Election Day.

“We will still rigorously enforce our ads policies, which strictly prohibit demonstrably false information that could significantly undermine trust in elections or the democratic process, among other forms of abuse,” Google said in a statement on Wednesday.

When Google announced the ban to advertisers in September, a spoke♛swoman said it would be in place for a minimum of a week and that factors such as whether there was c𒊎ivil unrest would impact when it was lifted.

Facebook, which introduced a temporary ban on political and issue ads, sa🌃id in November its post-election pause on political&🐷nbsp;ads would likely last another month. Facebook d🤡id not immedia🥃tely reply to a Reuters question on when it would lift its ban.

The extensions of the ad pausesꦛ raised concerns from campaigns and groups ea𝓀ger to reach voters for key Georgia races in January that will decide control of the Senate.

Google’s ban applied to election-related ꦉ;ads on its ad-serving platforms, including its video-🐟streaming service YouTube and Google Ads.

Twitter banned political 🌠ads last year.