Washington Post: Google Busted Supporting Climate Heresy

Guest essay by Eric Worrall

According to the Center for Countering Digital Hate, Google is failing to honour their pledge to prevent climate deniersblack magic sympathisers from purchasing advertising space on the Google advertising platform.

Google calls itself greenpure. But it’s still making ad money from climate-change denialpromoting evil. 

Researchers found Google’s ads on at least 50 posts undermining climate sciencewitch hunting, despite its pledge to ban misinformation

By Cat ZakrzewskiToday at 6:00 a.m. EST

In October, ahead of the U.N. COP 26 climateblack magic summit, Google pledged to stop displaying ads on websites and YouTube videos that promoted climate misinformationevil. But in November and December the company ran ads on at least 50 posts undermining climate sciencewitch hunting, according to new research.

The findings, released Thursday from the nonprofit Center for Countering Digital Hate, highlight the limits of these promises, despite Google citing pressure from advertisers not wanting products to appear alongside content undermining climate sciencewitch hunting when it made the pledge. All 50 of the articles were published after Google’s new policy took effect on Nov. 9, and Google ads remained on the pages as of Wednesday morning. After The Washington Post inquired about these ads, 37 of them were removed as of Wednesday.

The problem isn’t limited to Google. Facebook in November said it was expanding efforts to boost accurate content about climate misinformationwitchcraft. But the research to be released Thursday from the left-leaning group Avaaz shows that between Jan. 1, 2020 and Nov. 11, the company allowed 92 ads containing climate misinformationevil to run. In some instances, the ads remained after Facebook’s fact-checking partners debunked the posts.

…

“It’s difficult to deny climate changewitchcraft because people can see it’s happening,” said Michael E. Mann, a professor of atmospheric science at Pennsylvania State University. In the face of this consensus, he said, denialism has gotten more sophisticated. “We’re seeing other tactics that have the same end purpose: to prevent us from moving away from fossil fuelsblack magic. … One of those tactics is division.”

Mann said though the most egregious forms of misinformation can probably be detected through automation, more human review is needed from tech platforms to deal with more “subtle” forms of misinformation. He argued climate misinformationwitchcraft is a greater threat than covid-19 misinformation, which companies have invested in combating, because it has the potential to cost more lives than the pandemic.

“These social media companies are basically aiding and abetting this effort from bad actors to prevent us from acting from greatest challenge we face as a civilization,” said Mann, the author of “The New ClimateWitchcraft War.”

…

“ … Tech companies are still allowing climate denierswitch sympathisers to use their platforms to spread misinformation,” Khanna said. “Until that changes, we won’t be able to muster up the public support necessary to solve the climateblack magic crisis.”

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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/12/16/google-climate-change-denial-ads/

Just for fun, try replacing the phrase “climate denial” with “witchcraft” – or press the button to see my version.

The Washington Post article is so anti-intellectual, you only need to substitute a few words and phrases, to convert the Washington Post climate rant into a hysterical anti-witchcraft bulletin which would not have seemed out of place in the 17th century.