On February 18, 2026 the Mena Alliance for Digital Rights sent an open letter to Google about the continued dissemination of state-sponsored disinformation advertising by the Israeli government and affiliated entities across Google platforms, including YouTube, Google Search, Google Display & Video 360. The letter, which you can read in full below, emphasized that “the dissemination of paid disinformation does more than mislead. It jeopardizes the lives of civilians, undermines trust in humanitarian institutions and causes long-term damage to the integrity of the information ecosystem.”
The communication also cc’ed the Irish Data Protection Authority and the Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology of the European Commission, in consideration of the fact that the DSA has strong regulatory requirements around ads.
We have not received a response from Google, and accordingly we are publishing the letter and will continue to advocate for Google to take real measures to uphold human rights during conflicts, and to apply its ad policies evenly to all parties on its platform. You can read the full letter here.
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