Google halts political ads in Singapore as election looms: documents

Google has stopped accepting political advertisements in Singapore months before a widely expected election, according to documents shared by a small political party which said it was angered by the decision that denies it voter reach.

In email correspondence between the Singapore Democratic Party and a senior Google public policy official, the tech firm said it “will not accept advertising regulated by the Code of Practice for Transparency of Online Political Advertisements”.

A spokeswoman for Alphabet Inc’s Google told Reuters the email exchange was authentic but declined to comment further.

The new code of practice, part of a controversial ‘fake news’ law introduced in October, requires advertising intermediaries to maintain detailed records of political adverts and their sponsors and make those records available to authorities.

The code applies to “all advertisement or paid content that can reasonably be regarded as being directed towards a political end”.

In the correspondence shared with media in a statement by SDP, Google’s Vice President, Government Affairs and Public Policy, APAC, Ted Osius, said: “This was not an easy decision to make as Google is committed to delivering useful and relevant election-related information to users around the world.”

Singapore, which has been ruled by the People’s Action Party since independence in 1965, has repeatedly said it is vulnerable to foreign interference in its domestic affairs.

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