This thread is full of comments that miss the fact that political ads are not uploaded to Google for free. Advertising is 99% of the funding that sustains the platform and makes Google oodles of money, and when it no longer suits them (read: doesn't generate profit and might be risky), they're dropping the content.
It'd be one thing if it was 20 petabytes of cat videos, but this is content that Google was literally paid to serve to people.
And 'broad'cast advertising is a different beast from hyper-targeted advertising that nobody but the intended recipient sees. In the latter case, political advertising archives offer insight into otherwise hidden advertising.
It'd be one thing if it was 20 petabytes of cat videos, but this is content that Google was literally paid to serve to people.
The whole discussion is cosmically ironic.