Did Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass tout a political poll as real without realizing it was actually a social experiment?
By Sofia Rubinson and Nora Moses
Four of the biggest companies operating programmatic advertising platforms — Google, Amazon, Yahoo, and Adobe — post their own ads on websites that repeatedly spread false claims, often next to articles advancing health hoaxes, conspiracy theories, or pro-Kremlin propaganda, NewsGuard has found.
Despite some of the companies’ assurances that they provide quality ad placements by offering “choice and control,” a NewsGuard analysis found that these companies themselves often fall victim to a haphazard process that places their advertising alongside healthcare hoaxes including bogus cancer treatments, false product claims even about their own products, and Russian disinformation claims.
Programmatic advertising uses automated systems to buy and sell digital ad space, allowing advertisers to target audiences based on their interests and to place ads across websites without negotiating each placement directly with publishers. A NewsGuard/Comscore analysis in 2021 found that top brands spent an estimated $2.6 billion a year on misinformation publishers through programmatic advertising. That waste has likely only grown over the last five years.
Google’s Display...
Did Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass tout a political poll as real without realizing it was actually a social experiment? Google, Amazon, Yahoo, and Adobe Claim to Protect their Programmatic Ad Clients...