Health Affairs Battles With Twitter and Google

One of the latest issues of the Health Affairs journal mentions topics on the reproductive and sexual health of Black women in the South, difficulties they encounter in clinics, and racial bias in their records. Of course, the company uses advertisements on platforms like Twitter and YouTube, where you can reach almost any audience, but unfortunately, the journal got banned on both big media websites. 

Patti Sweet, the director of the digital strategy of the issue, stated that the goal of the ad was to involve new users and get the attention of the masses. Despite this, Twitter and Google decided to use punishing methods/ Moreover, it included restricting the Google ads account of Health Affairs.

Speakers for the journal claim that the ban happened because of the targeted word “racism,” which gets marked by the algorithm and automatically rejects the ad. However, Google and Twitter deny that fact, saying instead that the problem was in the policies about Covid-19.

Companies refer to the Covid-19 topic as “sensitive content” that needs to be reviewed and approved because they don’t want to spread misinformation. While Twitter mentioned, that due to their policy, advertisers need to be certified to post about health and educational topics.  

Health Affairs is determined to gain access to its original account and through discussion return the ads onto both platforms. Although it doesn’t spread hate, it is natural that it got under such restrictions from the companies. After some appeals, the journal managed to get back the Google ads account, and now the writers are working on further connections with Twitter. 

Do you think it is rightful of Twitter and Google to ban such advertisements? What improvements can companies bring to their algorithm? Please, share your ideas with us in the comments below.