Trump campaign, GOP groups attack Google’s new ad policy

President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign and or Republican election groups criticized tech giant Google on Tuesday for making it harder for political advertisers to target specific types of people.

GOP groups said changes will lead directly to suppressing voter turut and would “disproportionately” hurt Republican candidates.

Google has said that, beginning in January in United States, advertisers will only be able to target political ads based on broad categories such as sex, and postal code. Currently, ads can be tailored to more specific groups, such as political affiliation.

But Trump campaign and Republican groups said Trump has built greatest digital operation in politics, so Google’s decision will “disproportionately impact both Trump operation and all of Republican candidates and organizations that derive strength from it.”

“Google should immediately reverse its decision in order to ensure y do t suppress voter turut during both Democrat primaries and 2020 general election,” GOP groups said.

Democratic political groups have also been critical of Google’s new policy. “Tech companies should t reduce power of grassroots just because it is easier than addressing abuse on ir platforms,” said leaders of 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 United States.

Google’s anuncement follows 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 move would help reduce flow of election-related misinformation. 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 percent of Americans use Twitter, ir impact is insignificant,” Trump campaign and GOP groups said in a joint release. “Google, however, is a serious platform with very deep reach across entire country.”

Trump has been complaining of bias from social media companies, though he is a voracious user of ir services. Republican groups followed his approach Tuesday, saying y’re skeptical Google’s new ad policy will be applied equally to conservative and liberal groups.

Google said in response to Republican groups’ complaints Tuesday that it’s going to stay course.

“We kw that political campaign strategists on both sides of aisle have raised concerns about how our changes may alter ir targeting strategies,” said Google spokeswoman Charlotte Smith. “But we believe balance we have struck ... is right one.”

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AP Techlogy Writer Rachel Lerman in San Francisco contributed to this report.