Fossil fuel firms among biggest spenders on Google fake search result ads

theguardian.com

19 points·vanusa··4 comments

I hate fake search results. https://imgur.com/a/Lk85lST is one that my father got a while back. Google needs to be accountable for harmful ads that they present to unsuspecting members of the public. Sellers of traditional forms of advertising on TV and in printed media are parts of organizations like the Ads Standards Council that defined the ethical parameters for advertising. Google has lost its way -- I wish they would reinstate the Don't Be Evil policy, as if ads preying on the vulnerable aren't evil, I don't know what is.

I took the liberty of paraphrasing the title a bit (to say "fake search results").

Both to make it shorter and because frankly, that's exactly what these ads are.

But your change is actually misleading - allowing your biases doesn't help actual debate on the complex issues.

I don't see why it's misleading to call ads that are deliberately designed to look like legitimate search results (and which are themselves explicitly designed to misinform and misdirect) "fake". You can call it "spin" if you want to. But I don't see how you call it misleading.

Allowing your biases doesn't help actual debate on the complex issues.

As if the companies that place these ads are interested in "debate".

Reply on news.ycombinator.com