By Kevin Freking
WASHINGTON (AP) --President Donald Trump's reelection campaign and other Republican election groups criticized tech giant Google on Tuesday for making it harder for political advertisers to target specific types of people.
The GOP groups said the changes will lead directly to suppressing voter turnout and would "disproportionately" hurt Republican candidates.
Google has said that, beginning in January in the United States, advertisers will only be able to target political ads based on broad categories such as sex, age and postal code. Currently, ads can be tailored to more specific groups, such as political affiliation.
But the Trump campaign and Republican groups said Trump has built the greatest digital operation in politics, so Google's decision will "disproportionately impact both the Trump operation and all of the Republican candidates and organizations that derive strength from it."
"Google should immediately reverse its decision in order to ensure they do not suppress voter turnout during both the Democrat primaries and the 2020 general election," the GOP groups said.
Democratic political groups have also been critical of Google's new policy. "Tech companies should not reduce the power of the grassroots just because it is easier than addressing abuse on their platforms," said leaders of the Democratic National Committee and allied groups helping oversee Democratic congressional campaigns.
Social media companies are grappling with how best to prevent a repeat of 2016 when Russian operatives, masquerading as Americans, used targeted advertisements and intentionally falsified news articles to interact with and attempt to deceive tens of millions of social media users in the United States.
Google's announcement follows the decision by Twitter to ban political ads. Twitter also placed restrictions on ads related to social causes such as climate change or abortion rights. Twitter said the move would help reduce the flow of election-related misinformation. The Trump campaign protested that change as well but said Google's will have more impact.
"Much has been made of Twitter's equally concerning decision to ban political ads and suppress speech, but because advertising on that platform is ineffective and only a tiny percentage of Americans use Twitter, their impact is insignificant," the Trump campaign and GOP groups said in a joint release. "Google, however, is a serious platform with very deep reach across the entire country."
Trump has been complaining of bias from social media companies, though he is a voracious user of their services. Republican groups followed his approach Tuesday, saying they're skeptical Google's new ad policy will be applied equally to conservative and liberal groups.
Google said in response to the Republican groups' complaints Tuesday that it's going to stay the course.
"We know that political campaign strategists on both sides of the aisle have raised concerns about how our changes may alter their targeting strategies," said Google spokeswoman Charlotte Smith. "But we believe the balance we have struck … is the right one."
AP Technology Writer Rachel Lerman in San Francisco contributed to this report.
After 20 Years of Acting, Megan Park Finds Her Groove In The Director’s Chair On “My Old Ass”
Megan Park feels a little bad that her movie is making so many people cry. It's not just a single tear either — more like full body sobs.
She didn't set out to make a tearjerker with "My Old Ass," now streaming on Prime Video. She just wanted to tell a story about a young woman in conversation with her older self. The film is quite funny (the dialogue between 18-year-old and almost 40-year-old Elliott happens because of a mushroom trip that includes a Justin Bieber cover), but it packs an emotional punch, too.
Writing, Park said, is often her way of working through things. When she put pen to paper on "My Old Ass," she was a new mom and staying in her childhood bedroom during the pandemic. One night, she and her whole nuclear family slept under the same roof. She didn't know it then, but it would be the last time, and she started wondering what it would be like to have known that.
In the film, older Elliott ( Aubrey Plaza ) advises younger Elliott ( Maisy Stella ) to not be so eager to leave her provincial town, her younger brothers and her parents and to slow down and appreciate things as they are. She also tells her to stay away from a guy named Chad who she meets the next day and discovers that, unfortunately, he's quite cute.
At 38, Park is just getting started as a filmmaker. Her first, "The Fallout," in which Jenna Ortega plays a teen in the aftermath of a school shooting, had one of those pandemic releases that didn't even feel real. But it did get the attention of Margot Robbie 's production company LuckyChap Entertainment, who reached out to Park to see what other ideas she had brewing.
"They were very instrumental in encouraging me to go with it," Park said. "They're just really even-keeled, good people, which makes... Read More