Google is making money off of disinformation via ads: report

San Francisco: Google is being accused of making money off of disinformation via its ad practices. A report by ProPublica investigation investigated the false information circulating in Europe, Latin America, and Africa.

The probe is the first ever conducted at this scale and findings suggest that Google's sprawling automated digital ad operation placed ads from major brands on global websites that spread false claims on such topics as vaccines, Covid-19, climate change, and elections. The report also said the tech giant is routinely placing ads on sites pushing falsehoods about Covid-19 and climate change in French, German, and Spanish-speaking countries.

ProPublica scanned more than 13,000 active article pages from thousands of websites in more than half a dozen languages to analyse ad revenue.

The investigator claims Google is likely making millions of dollars for people and groups running these sites and spreading unreliable information. Google is making money for itself too. "Ads from Google are more likely to appear on misleading articles and websites that are in languages other than English. Google profits from advertising that appears next to false stories on subjects not explicitly addressed in its policy, including crime, politics, and such conspiracy theories as chemtrails."

According to the probe, Google places ads on 41% of roughly 800 active online articles which are rated as false claims about Covid-19 by members of the Poynter Institute's International Fact-Checking Network. The company also served ads on 20% of articles about climate change which are rated false by Science Feedback, an IFCN-accredited fact-checking organisation.

A former Google leader has acknowledged that the company's focus is heavily on English-language enforcement. "It is weaker across other languages and smaller markets." This has led to an increase in the number of ads blocked on English pages that violate its rules.