Almost half of the ads on fake news sites come from Google
Google advertising co-finances fake news sites. (Photo: BigTunaOnline / Shutterstock)
According to a study, Google delivers almost half of all advertisements on websites that spread fake news. The researchers see Google as an obligation to take stronger action against it.
According to the Ads Safety Report published in March, Google blocked or removed around 3.1 billion ads in 2020 alone and banned 1.3 billion publisher pages from showing ads because they violated the search engine company’s guidelines. It’s not always, but often also about fake news or conspiracy stories. But that doesn’t seem to be enough. According to one study, fake news sites – and advertisers like Google – still make a lot of money from advertising despite these efforts.
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Google delivers ads on fake news sites
Researchers Lia Bozarth and Ceren Budak from the University of Michigan School of Information met in their study “Market Forces: Quantifying the Role of Top Credible Ad Servers in the Fake News Ecosystem” dealt with the role of large advertising providers in the financing of fake news slingshots. One of the results: Google alone is responsible for 48 percent of all ads that appear on websites that spread fake news and conspiracy stories.
According to the study, the top 10 respected advertising providers account for two thirds of the advertisements on fake news sites. In the case of low-quality news websites, the figure is almost 56 percent. In addition to Google, MGID, Lockerdome, Yandex, Pubmatic and Outbrain are among the big players on the advertising power. The examined pages come from the list “False, Misleading, Clickbait-y, and / or Satirical, News’ Sources”, which the media student Melissa Zimdars of Merrimack College had created in 2018.
Effective lever against misinformation
According to the researchers, the income from these special advertisements only makes up a fraction of the sales of the advertising groups – accordingly, it shouldn’t be a problem for Google and the other companies to do without them, according to the idea. According to the study, it is said to be around $ 1 million per month for the top 10 advertising companies. For the researchers, placing advertising on fake news sites is a cheap but effective lever to reduce the economic incentives for misinformation and disinformation.
