Google Bans Ads Claiming Climate Change a Hoax
Google says it will no longer place ads on pages that make false claims about climate change. The move is as much about keeping advertisers happy as it is a political statement.
The policy doesn't affect whether pages appear in Google search results or how highly they are ranked. Instead, its all about the ads which Google places when acting as a middleman between advertisers and websites. It also affects ads shown before, during or beside YouTube videos.
The move "demonetizes" the content in two ways. Sites affected by the move will no longer be allowed to carry Google advertising, nor be promoted in ads placed by Google.
No Hoax Claims Allowed
Google says it has laid out specific criteria for the ban, which will cover:
"Content that contradicts well-established scientific consensus around the existence and causes of climate change. This includes content referring to climate change as a hoax or a scam, claims denying that long-term trends show the global climate is warming, and claims denying that greenhouse gas emissions or human activity contribute to climate change."
It clarifies that the ad ban only applies to content making such a claim. It won't affect content that "reports on or discusses such a claim." Those distinctions will be made using "a combination of automated tools and human reviews." (Source: google.com)
Advertisers And Sites Called For Ban
Although Google says the move aligns with its own work and promotion on climate issues, it's clear on the main reason for the change to its ad policies:
"Advertisers simply don't want their ads to appear next to this content. And publishers and creators don't want ads promoting these claims to appear on their pages or videos." (Source: arstechnica.com)
It's not the first time Google has banned ads that aren't inherently illegal. For example, it recently banned ads for third-party services that charged people to get government documents (or pay for official services such as tolls) when such services are already available directly from an official source.
It also bans ads which make false claims such as "content that suggests a tragic event did not happen, or that victims or their families are actors, or complicit in a cover-up of the event."
What's Your Opinion?
Is Google right to ban such ads? Should Google have the final say over which ads it does and doesn't carry? Are such ads dangerous or is it enough just to let people decide whether to not to click on them?
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Comments
Just more of the same
Google and their ilk are just another arm of our Marxist government. Climate change IS a hoax. So are the multitude of new genders. So is the closed borders hoax and on and on. Websites that post truth are quickly shut down.
Banning
Looks like "Navy vet" and his blinkered non-believing approach is just the sort of entity that needs throwing off the net for good. I really had difficulty in believing what I was reading. Of course Google is correct in blocking ads. and people like him who seem to delight in opposing proven scientific facts. Notice I said "FACTS" - not ethereal conspiracy theories or downright lies, often uttered without a shred of evidence, scientific or otherwise, to back them up. For once, I agree wholeheartedly with that particular Big Tech in trying to stop the flow of misinformation.
Of course
And I'll bet you think Biden is doing great. I think your brain is oxygen deprived from your double mask.
Google got it right for a change
Interesting to see that Navy Vet ( does that somehow infer scientific credibility ?) and the Flat Earth Society are still in business. What's that old expression " Do you believe me or your lying eyes?" <g> Guess we know the answer there. Another person from the cult of Dumpty obviously. Read a survey indicating that 52% of these folks would like to secede from the United States. If true, can we find a nice big, isolated island for them to inhabit? Just thinking.
Google just being political
there is absolutely NO PROOF that there is "climate change" which isn't a part of the natural routine. I remind all the "GOOGLE IS RIGHT" people that at one time it was the CONSENSUS that the earth was indeed flat. Just because there seems to be a "consensus" does NOT mean the "consensus" is correct. In 1543, Nicolaus Copernicus detailed his radical theory of the Universe in which the Earth, along with the other planets, rotated around the Sun. His theory took more than a century to become widely accepted. Up until that time, it was the CONSENSUS that the sun revolved around the earth.
the problem with GOOGLE and the other nay-sayers is that they will prevent other ideas from being aired, whether accurate or not. How does GOOGE KNOW there is "climate change"? because the leading "scientists" of today say so? the leading scientists of 1500's said the sun revolved around the earth AND THEY WERE WRONG. But maybe the entire planet would STILL believe that hogwash if Copernicus had been censored for promoting his ideas.
it is the free exchange of opinions that create progress in the general knowledge of human-kind.
Google just being political
russoule, whether or not we have PROOF that the climate change we are experiencing is not the natural course of the planet depends is far more than mere theory. There is considerable scientific evidence. Overwhelming evidence, and it doesn't take an Einstein to connect the dots. But, it does take a fairly ignorant person to NOT connect the dots, when the knowledge of how many dots there are, where they came from and what happens when to many dots get in the atmosphere is pretty well studied and understood by thousands of scientists (not a handful of self-important court jesters) who are specifically educated and trained to finds these dots and understand their impact.
I whole-heartedly agree with the free exchange of opinions and ideas, not with the presentation of dangerous or deadly misinformation as fact. Google acted responsibly in preventing the dangerous and deadly dissemination of baseless misinformation, and in knowledge of overwhelming evidence that what they were stopping was, in fact, baseless misinformation. Google, after all, has more collective knowledge than anyone in the world. And, they know where you live. LOL
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Your world is small Navy-vet, and your mind is smaller. You apparently aren't happy unless you have some ridiculous conspiracy theory to wake up to in the morning. You don't understand the world around you, and you apparently have difficulty dealing with the realities that contest your small-minded idea of what the world should be to make you comfortable living in it. You challenge truth without understanding it. You disregard science and truth that years and years of discovery through challenging what we know against theory of what we think is possible has accomplished. You call names and trash truth, though you can't prove any of your conspiracy laced nonsense, because it's only real in your own small mind (and on some ultra right-wing nonsense website). You're not stupid. You just choose to be anti-anything that advances civilization in a progressive direction. You must be a miserable soul. But, it's your soul, and I hope you find happiness in your misery. I just hope it doesn't infect the people around you and make them equally miserable, though that may be your goal.
Climate change is real, whether you and your ilk choose to accept the facts, or not. The environmental science proves it is true. You can only spout untrue contradictions and conspiracy theory to contest the validity. There is no future in denying the damage we're doing to the Earth and air we breath. There is only peril for our species. We are using up this planet faster than she can repair the damage we're doing. We're causing the extinction of thousands of creatures that did quite well until the industrial age came along.
Apparently, much of what you call truth isn't truth at all. I can post lies all day long on Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, or anywhere else and they won't get taken down. But, when my lies put people's lives in danger because those people are too stupid to verify my information or believe that injecting themselves with Clorox is a cure for Covid, or that an election declared "the most secure election in American election history" by Trump's personally appointed head of elections was a corrupt and stolen election, an accusation completely without evidence, then those lies SHOULD be taken down. It would be irresponsible not to.
What good is two hundred years of scientific advancement and science, itself, if we cannot use it to advance civilization and preserve the planet for future generations? Do you think sorcery or vudu witchcraft is a better option?
You don't like the results of a fair and democratic election. So, what's the option? A dictatorship with a disgusting, corrupt, lying, incompetent leader like Trump? Really? You have so little respect for the American democracy so many Americans before you fought and died for?
What do you believe in? Qanon? Fox Disinformation News? There are two kinds of people in the world... those who don't care what they hear as long as it's the truth, and those who only want to hear what they want to hear. You certainly don't want to hear the truth.
Google's actions are good, reasonable and necessary. Good on them for doing what is right. The fact is, they could, and should, do a whole lot more to shut down the anti-civility, anti-sanity, anti-vax, anti-democracy bullshit so many people seem to be feeding on. Perhaps you simply identify with Bannon because he's ex-Navy. You really should use better judgement in choosing a patriotic, moral and ethical idol.
Google is a good search engine
but if there is any global warming
Google caused it
so they aren't really an unbiased arbiter of science
now
are they?????????????
Google's actions are good, reasonable and necessary?
Wow! Navy Vet expresses his opinion and is visciously attacked by a couple of guys who do not share his opinion. This is yet another sign of the times, where the First Ammendment is under attack by the Left.
I happen to share Navy Vet's opinions, but even if I didn't, I wouldn't attack the guy simply for expressing his opinions.
I'm sure for most of you George Orwell's book 1984 was required reading in high school. It may be time to have another read of this book that certainly appears by what we are experiencing today, to be a prophetic novel.
People should be free to believe what they want, even if you disagree. Just because another's belief doesn't align with yours doesn't make it untrue.
And please, let's try to keep a more civil tone while having these discussions.
#LetsGoBrandon
Navy vet was not "viciously"
Navy vet was not "viciously" attacked. He was met with a strong argument to his opinion, which is not difficult to identify as an opinion shaped by the lies and disinformation being fed to an audience of certain news outlets known to purposely skew truth and fact in the interest of putting their own financial gain above the national interest of our country.
Yours is yet another example of the Right accusing the Left of wanting to attack the Fist Amendment, when what the Left wants is the responsible exercising of First Amendment rights. With liberty comes responsibility. Baseless lies and deadly misinformation does not qualify as responsible use of America's First Amendment rights.
Staying civil in sight of such reckless and ignorant abuse of First Amendment rights is not an easy quest.
Global warming
That the world is warming up would appear to be irrefutable. All the evidence points to Global Warming, but I am not going to lay it all out here, I am sure that most have seen it plenty of times.
But I have a problem. We are in agreement about the result, but I think the cause needs to be properly examined. It would seem that the sun is warming up, this was known before Global Warming became a big issue, though it is nowhere near enough on its own to cause the massive change in temperatures we have seen. Then there is the magnetic core. It is weakening and is overdue a switch from north to south. As it weakens it affects the protective atmosphere and scientists don't even know just how much damage it may cause. But they believe the earth will kind of fry. And it looks like a flip has started.
Then of course we have all the CO2 we have released into the atmosphere along with methane and other greenhouse gasses. How much effect do they actually have on their own? There are other things to consider like deforestation and reforestation, and what the balance there will be. How much does the ocean actually absorb? Some studies suggest that it has reached a tipping point and may be releasing gasses now.
What I am trying to say is there is far more going on than just human activity now. We may have unwittingly started the catalyst, but I honestly think that the solution is no longer a simple case of cutting greenhouse gas emissions. I think it is time to think outside the box, in fact way outside the box, or we might just have to reconsider life on this planet we have been entrusted with.