#No2Misinfo

Google Is Profiting from Misinformation Delegitimizing the US Elections

Google’s Ads service is placing adverts on, and therefore funding, websites publishing election-related misinformation. Google also profits from each ad.

Trust in democracy is under threat. Misinformation about mail-in ballots is being spread online in order to suppress voter turnout, while conspiracy theories about electoral fraud and the rigging of the election undermine trust in the democratic process. This risks a break in the peaceful transfer of power.

A number of websites are fuelling these falsehoods. The Global Disinformation Index identified 145 such sites and the New York Times has reported on the nature of the misinformation they produce. In this report we examine six of these sites, all of which are funded by adverts placed on their site by Google Ads.

They are:
● Gateway Pundit
● American Thinker
● Big League Politics
● American Greatness
● Washington Standard
● Waking Times

These sites publish stories which contain misinformation and potentially dangerous claims about the electoral process, including that:
● Mail-in voting is being introduced to “steal the election”
● “Terrorist attacks, pandemics, [and] civil unrest” are all “manipulated crises” to influence the population ahead of elections
● The Jewish philanthropist George Soros is encouraging voter fraud to further his “diabolical agenda”
● Tech companies and Joe Biden’s campaign have colluded to rig the election
● Demands that “patriots rise up and defend justice quickly” because “it does not appear that the swamp can be drained at the ballot box”

In total, these six websites received approximately 40 million visits last month. Using Google’s own AdSense Revenue Calculator and published figures on Google’s share of revenues from advertising, we estimate that Google makes $1.6 million in annual revenue from placing adverts on these sites, while the sites themselves receive an estimated $3.4 million a year.

That money is paid by unsuspecting brands, which often don’t know where Google is placing their adverts. We found advertisements for household name brands like Kia, Yamaha, Puma, North Face, and Georgetown University next to dangerous misinformation and conspiracy theories.

Google claims not to monetize content which:
“…makes claims that are demonstrably false and could significantly undermine participation or trust in an electoral or democratic process.”

Yet the evidence we’ve compiled in this report shows that it is failing to enforce its own policies.