The streaming site Hulu will now align its political advertising policies to issue advertisements for political policy positions, according to Deadline. This comes after Hulu rejected the usage of political issue ads, and the Co., parent of Walt Disney, has since then reviewed the policies.
Previous to this ad agreement, Hulu had prohibited ad content that has a position on controversial issues such as Abortion and Gun control. However, according to Deadline, the recent decision was brought about by Democratic Senatorial Campaign Communities that by prohibiting controversial ads, Hulu is contributing to censorship of the truth.
Hulu is a central streaming platform, and since they were not showing ads on current social issues, they have decreased the number of online resources that the public can use to find out information about daily social issues occurring today. According to Deadline, Hulu is a platform that could be used as a target for information for the younger voter audience.
Previously Joe Earley (The Addams Family), the president of Hulu, had stated that there was an “unwritten policy” that Hulu would try to exclude ad topics that are seen as sensitive for TV outlets, according to Deadline. This puts Hulu at political halt with various advocacy agencies who want to use streaming sites like Hulu to raise awareness of current social issues. According to Deadline, Disney also ran into this issue a year ago when they declined to weigh in on the bill restricting K-3 teachers from discussing sexual orientation and gender identity topics.
Since these incidents, Hulu’s parent company, The Walt Disney Co., wanted to appease the advocacy agencies as they now allow social issue ads to be displayed on the site. However, according to Deadline, Hulu reserves the right to request ad edits to align with the industry standards.