Platform transparency reports are the primary tool we have to scrutinize the digital ad spending of governments and political actors. But what happens when these reports have gaps? Recently I stumbled upon a significant ad campaign from a state actor is running on YouTube while being absent from Google’s own Ad Library.
The account for Israel’s Foreign Affairs Ministry has been running a multi-language ad campaign on YouTube centered on “the Iranian missile threat to Europe.” These videos, professionally produced in English, French, German, and Italian, show all the hallmarks of a significant, paid advertising campaign. However, when you go to the Google Ad Transparency Center, it is impossible to find the advertisements by the account:
The key indicators for these being ads are the view counts and the lack of engagement. One video, for instance, has amassed over 11 million views. Yet, across these high-traffic videos, we can observe a strange pattern: zero comments.
For any organic video reaching millions of viewers, a complete absence of comments is practically unheard of. However, when ads are being shown within a different YouTube video, there is no comment section for people to give their opinion on the ad itself. This, combined with the high production value and multi-language push, strongly suggests the views are the result of paid promotion.
A Transparency Failure
The purpose of the Google Ad Library is to provide a clear, searchable record of who is paying for ads, especially those of a political nature. However, a search for these campaigns from the Israeli Foreign Affairs Ministry yields nothing. They are not being disclosed.
This is more than a one-off error though. It points to a fundamental problem with the platform’s transparency tools. As a coalition of civil society organizations, including Who Targets Me and the Civil Liberties Union for Europe (Liberties), recently argued in an open letter to Google, the ad repository is a “black box that hides more than it reveals.” They highlight that Google’s narrow definition of “election ads” fails to capture a vast amount of political advertising, and that the library’s poor search functionality makes proactively finding improper campaigns nearly impossible.
What we see with this Israeli MFA campaign is a clear manifestation of that failure. It leaves journalists and researchers to hunt for breadcrumbs, rendering the promise of transparency hollow. The practical consequences are:
- We don’t know how much money is being spent. Without disclosure, there is no way to assess the scale and financial power behind these influence operations.
- We don’t know who is being targeted. Are these ads being shown to the general public, or are they being micro-targeted at specific demographics, or regions?
- We cannot hold anyone accountable. Without a record, there is no way for the public, regulators, or civil society to analyze the messaging or hold advertisers and the platform accountable for covert manipulation.
If a government can spend significant funds on a multi-national geopolitical ad campaign without it being cataloged, then in my humble opinion, the system is broken.