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Bellingcat’s Pooja Chaudhuri reveals how articles based on disinformation and hateful content on Indian websites are continuing to generate profit through Google’s Adsense programme and other ad tech platforms despite being debunked by fact-checkers. https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2024/08/29/google-ads-funding-disinformation-india/?utm_source=mastodon

How Google Ads Are Funding Disinformation Campaigns in India

A Bellingcat investigation found 46 websites running ads by Google alongside debunked statements inciting hate in India.
Pooja Chaudhuri (bellingcat)
in reply to Bellingcat

Bellingcat
Bellingcat
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Through Google’s Adsense programme, online publishers are estimated to earn $10-$20 for every 1,000 views on a story containing advertisements – although actual revenue is dependent on many factors including your content category and region.
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Bellingcat
Bellingcat
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In our research, we found 53 websites, including 21 media outlets, carrying 91 active articles containing “hateful” content – as defined by Google – that had previously been debunked by International Fact Checking Network (IFCN)-accredited organisations or Alt News, a leading fact-checking website in India.
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Bellingcat
Bellingcat
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Google confirmed that 44 websites – many of which are well-known within India's disinformation and hate ecosystem – were running digital ads through its AdSense programme, next to 17 instances of hateful disinformation on 72 active pages.
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Bellingcat
Bellingcat
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One disinformation story being pushed by these sites is the conspiracy theory of “flood jihad” shared in 2022 which blamed Muslims for causing floods in the Hindu-majority city of Silchar by deliberately damaging flood defences. This had led to the arrest of four Muslim men who were later released due to lack of evidence.
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Bellingcat
Bellingcat
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From July to August 2024, Bellingcat was served ads for e-commerce website Temu, web hosting company Bluehost, Easy View, a browser extension, and Joyalukkas Jewelry while viewing articles about the 2022 “flood jihad” conspiracy on four websites.
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Bellingcat
Bellingcat
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One article on the floods on website Sanatan Samachar, referred to Muslims as “devils” who are always in the lookout for opportunities to create havoc. We found similar derogatory language on multiple websites posting misleading articles on this case.
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Bellingcat
Bellingcat
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In response to our email on these specific articles Temu removed its ads from Sanatan Samachar and three other websites – Newstrack, OpIndia and Jaipur Dialogues – which had also published other hateful disinformation stories related to India that we pointed out to them.
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Bellingcat
Bellingcat
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Temu said: “We were unaware that our Google ads were appearing on the websites you mentioned. We do not operate in India, and this situation occurred without our knowledge."
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Bellingcat
Bellingcat
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Google has actively promoted its efforts to fight online disinformation and has a policy against hateful conduct. Despite this we found Google was the largest ad services provider in our dataset, listed on 44 websites.
https://support.google.com/publisherpolicies/answer/10522641?hl=en&ref_topic=10436798&sjid=7892147177562054783-NA
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Bellingcat
Bellingcat
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A Google spokesperson responded to our findings with: “Protecting users is our top priority and we do not allow ads on content which incites hatred against, promotes discrimination of or disparages an individual or group on the basis of their race or ethnic origin, or religion...
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Bellingcat
Bellingcat
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“When we find content that evades our detection we take immediate action and remove ads from serving.” Google claimed that the majority of the 72 active links to false information we'd identified did not violate its policies and those which did were blocked from serving ads.
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Bellingcat
Bellingcat
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Bellingcat was also served ads by Taboola and iZooto on an article falsely linking a Muslim student protestor to the terrorist group Al-Qaeda. Both Taboola and iZooto did not respond to our questions on this.
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Bellingcat
Bellingcat
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The data analysed includes articles containing debunked disinformation in English, with a small portion in Hindi; we fear the number of websites making money in this manner is likely to be much larger than the dataset we collected.
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Bellingcat
Bellingcat
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Learn more about how the adverts are working in favour of disinformation by reading the full investigation here:

https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2024/08/29/google-ads-funding-disinformation-india/?utm_source=mastodon


How Google Ads Are Funding Disinformation Campaigns in India

A Bellingcat investigation found 46 websites running ads by Google alongside debunked statements inciting hate in India.
Pooja Chaudhuri (bellingcat)
in reply to Bellingcat

Bellingcat
Bellingcat
• •
This isn’t the first time we’ve looked at how disinformation sites in India are making money. Read this earlier article by Pooja Chaudhuri on how four websites are generating funding through problematic foreign funding: https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2024/05/28/how-hindu-nationalist-far-right-india-websites-money/

How Four Hindu Nationalist Websites Make Their Money - bellingcat

Open sources reveal how four far-fight Indian websites receive foreign currency donations.
Pooja Chaudhuri (bellingcat)
in reply to Bellingcat

Bellingcat
Bellingcat
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Bellingcat is a non-profit and the ability to carry out our work is dependent on the kind support of individual donors. If you would like to support our work, you can do so here https://www.bellingcat.com/donate/

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pgcd
pgcd
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same thing happened in Italy between 2010-2013 - some kid kept on creating blatantly fake hateful content to make money off advertisement - and in US in 2016 (this time it was a bunch of kids from a Macedonian village).

Hate sells.

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Mike LaBonte
Mike LaBonte
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this type of investigation is what @checkmyads does. They have great resources for people to understand how digital advertising works, how it funds #disinformation, and how companies like Google don’t really try to stop it.
#disinformation @Check My Ads
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Preston MacDougall
Preston MacDougall
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The ‘content moderators’ at #Google , #Facebook etc… are the #cyberspace equivalent of #MallCops. It’s fine to have them present, but who would want to live in a city where they were responsible for #PublicSafety ?
#facebook #Google #publicsafety #cyberspace #mallcops
in reply to Bellingcat

Merc
Merc
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"We do not operate in India"

Was Bellingcat using a private/incognito browser window and a VPN with an Indian address to see these pages with the kinds of ads an Indian would see? If not, these ads are presumably targeting the Bellingcat investigator, who presumably lives somewhere like the US. It seems to me that's an important distinction, especially when talking about how these rumours affect Indians.

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JDGooiker
JDGooiker
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Volgtip voor wie op Linkedin actief is;
Check My Ads

(Nandini Jammie en Claire Atkins)

@checkmyads

@Check My Ads
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Toni Aittoniemi
Toni Aittoniemi
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I can’t stress enough how important it is to make clear that the largest companies of the ”free world” are happy to make a profit on disinformation and hate speech elsewhere.
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