Google Blocks Ads for STI Awareness Campaign, Undermining Public Health Efforts

As of October 9th, 2025, Google has been blocking ads for a commonwealth-funded STI awareness campaign, frustrating efforts by sexual health organizations to share critical public health information online.

In November 2024, the tech giant added "STI testing" to its list of sensitive topics, triggering an automatic rejection of each ad for the national campaign run by Sexual and Reproductive Health Australia (SRHA). This caused weeks of delays and forced the organization to contact Google on 10 different occasions to try and get the ads approved.

Greens leader Larissa Waters told a Senate estimates hearing that Google's moderation practices have "undermined the reach and cost-effectiveness" of the public health campaign. "It's interfering with public health objectives and potentially wasting the commonwealth money," she said.

SRHA CEO Daile Kelleher explained that the organization had to pay Google to distribute the ads through its online channels, as that's where young people are and where the education needs to be. However, the ads were auto-rejected 12 times, and the organization was even told to change the wording, which would have "watered down the message."

This is not an isolated incident, as other sexual health topics like contraception have also triggered ad blocks in the past. Kelleher warned that "misinformation and disinformation" can spread more easily than evidence-based campaigns on Google's platforms.