Trump Campaign, Republicans Condemn Google Rule Change on Political Ads

The Trump campaign, The Republican National Committee, the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee have condemned Google’s decision to ban targeted political ads, calling it a “blatant attempt to suppress voter information, knowledge, and engagement.”

Last week, it was reported that Google plans to stop advertisers from using voter data to create targeted ads. Data such as public voter records and political affiliations will be off-limits to advertisers during the election campaign.

“We’re limiting election ads audience targeting to the following general categories: age, gender, and general location (postal code level),” said a Google spokesman. “Political advertisers can, of course, continue to do contextual targeting, such as serving ads to people reading or watching a story about, say, the economy.”

In a tweet, Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale said Google’s “arbitrary” rule change will “lead directly to suppressing voter turnout.”

He also shared a statement from the Trump campaign, the RNC, the NRSC, and the NRCC, which declared a similar position.

Full text: pic.twitter.com/gPU18Cc9Bn

— Brad Parscale (@parscale) November 26, 2019

“There can be no denying that President Trump and his campaign have built the greatest digital operation in all of politics, and that Google’s decision will disproportionately impact both the Trump operation and all of the Republican candidates and organizations that derive strength from it,” said the statement.

“What’s more, given the growing and documented cases of anti-conservative bias in Silicon Valley, we are highly skeptical that such a ban would be applied equally to conservative and liberal organizations.”

“Google has made an extraordinarily poor decision which will lead to less-informed voters, lower voter engagement, and voter suppression,” concluded the statement, which called on Google to “immediately reverse its decision.”

Read the full statement here.

Are you an insider at Google, Facebook, Twitter or any other tech company who wants to confidentially reveal wrongdoing or political bias at your company? Reach out to Allum Bokhari at his secure email address allumbokhari@protonmail.com. 

Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News.