Aiming to increase transparency and combat misinformation in political advertising, Google recently updated its political content policy, requiring advertisers to label synthetic or digitally altered election ads in a blog post released July 1. 

“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 their campaign settings,” the company said. 

After ticking the checkbox, Google will generate in-ad disclosures for Feeds and Shorts on mobile phones and in-stream on computers, mobile phones, mobile web, and TV screens. Advertisers are then responsible for providing prominent disclosures for the remaining formats. 

“The disclosure must be clear and conspicuous and must be placed in a location where it is likely to be noticed by users,” Google added.

The acceptable disclosure language will vary depending on the political ad’s particular context but may include altered or synthetic content, computer-generated audio, images that don’t depict real events, or synthetically-generated video content. 

The policy update reflects Google’s growing concerns about the potential of AI-generated content to mislead voters using political advertising.