Will stop paying climate change deniers: Google

In an official post updating the regulations of Google AdSense, the tech giant has announced that from November onwards, it will no longer allow advertising revenue to be paid to those who contradict "well-established scientific consensus around the existence and causes of climate change."

"Advertisers simply don't want their ads to appear next to this content. And publishers and creators don't want ads promoting these claims to appear on their pages or videos...This includes content referring to climate change as a hoax or a scam, claims to deny that long-term trends show the global climate is warming, and claims denying that greenhouse gas emissions or human activity contribute to climate change," the post reads.

The company said it was working with "outside experts" to prevent exposure of users to viral misinformation regarding vaccines, climate change and other popular hoaxes and pseudoscience. The move comes shortly after its rival Facebook was targeted by a whistleblower and former employee who accused it of allowing misinformation to flourish in order to bring in profits.

Google said it was still going to allow ads to run on climate research pages, debates on climate policy and discussions on the varying effects of climate change. The new ad policy was formulated with the help of experts who have contributed to United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Assessment Reports."

"As is the case for many of our policies, we'll use a combination of automated tools and human review to enforce this policy against violating publisher content, Google-served ads, and YouTube videos that are monetizing via YouTube's Partner Program," the post reads.