Google takes new measures to increase transparency on political ads
San Francisco, Aug 16 :Google took a new move Wednesday to increase transparency on political ads on its platform by releasing an online library of US political ads and a report on details of ad-expenditure ahead of the mid-term US elections in November this year.
Google said the addition of the political advertising report and the new Ad Library are new transparency features aimed at implementing new requirements for any advertiser purchasing election ads on Google in the US, Xinhua reported.
Under the new mechanism, political advertisers now have to provide a government-issued ID and other key information that confirms they are a US citizen or lawful permanent resident in the country.
The measures are apparently an updated response to disputes on social media networks that Russia had been involved in U.S. presidential elections in 2016, an allegation that has been rejected repeatedly by Moscow.
Google is running a searchable archive Wednesday where people can find all data and details about political ads via its Search engine and YouTube, including promotions for a candidate for a federal elected office or a sitting official.
The library allows users to search who pays for the ads, the costs in deploying the advertising and how long the ads will be running, plus the number of page views.
The US tech giant has agreed to give the public and third parties direct access to the archive through Google Cloud's BigQuery, where anyone can write code and run their own unique queries on this data set.
"Researchers, political watchdog groups and private citizens can use our data set to develop charts, graphs, tables or other visualizations of political advertising on Google Ads services," said Michee Smith, the product lead on the company's transparency report.
"With the Transparency Report, we hope this provides unprecedented, data-driven insights into election ads on our platform," Google said.
With the the 2018 midterm elections approaching, Google said its new tools aim to help protect political campaigns, provide voters with accurate information, and increase transparency across its platforms.
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Two girls injured in separate wolf attacks in UP's Bahraich
Bahraich (UP) (PTI): Two minor girls were injured in separate incidents of wolf attacks in the Bahraich district, forest department officials said on Saturday.
In the first incident on Friday, Anushka Nishad (5), daughter of Baliram from Mallahanpurwa village, was sleeping alone inside her house when a wolf entered and tried to carry her away, they said.
Hearing her screams, family members and villagers rushed to the spot. The wolf left the child, hearing the commotion, and ran towards the fields. The girl sustained minor injuries from the animal's teeth, the officials said.
Divisional Forest Officer Ram Singh Yadav described the attack as deliberate and cleverly planned, as it occurred precisely when Anushka's mother went out for a few moments.
On the same day, Nancy (4), daughter of Kamlesh Yadav, was playing outside her house in Baburi Tola village when a wolf suddenly attacked and dragged her away.
Villagers raised an alarm, and the wolf released the child and ran towards the sugarcane fields. The injured child was sent to the Kaiserganj Community Health Centre for treatment.
Divisional Forest Officer Ram Singh Yadav told reporters that both attacks involved wolves, adding that the entire area is plagued by the animal's activity.
Since September 9, such attacks in the Bahraich district have claimed 10 lives, including eight children and an elderly couple, and injured dozens of people, the officials said.
District Magistrate Akshay Tripathi met the families of the victims on Friday and consoled them.
