Climate change is arguably the single biggest threat that is impacting our planet because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up making the planet too hot for humans or any other creatures to live on in the long run. Fossil fuel is a huge contributor to climate change, and this is a problem for the various companies that specialize in selling fossil fuels.
With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that if you want to use Google to learn more about fossil fuel and climate change, you may very well be seeing fossil fuel ads. Google allows companies to buy ads that will be displayed at the very top of its SERP, and these ads look quite similar to regular search results so you might not know the difference.
The companies that are running these ads have a vested interest in spreading misinformation regarding climate change so that they can bolster their own profit margins for the foreseeable future. The Guardian partnered with InfluenceMap, a think tank focusing on climate related issues, to see how many ads there were on such pages. They entered 78 different search queries that had something or the other to do with climate change, and the ads that they saw were rather jarring to say the least.
20% of the over 1,600 ads on the top of Google’s SERP with such queries came from fossil fuel oriented enterprises with all things having been considered and taken into account. That includes companies like ExxonMobil, and many of these companies are responsible for oil spills and the like as well. The presence of these companies and their ads might make it more difficult for users to get a balanced representation of what is actually going on in the world.
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With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that if you want to use Google to learn more about fossil fuel and climate change, you may very well be seeing fossil fuel ads. Google allows companies to buy ads that will be displayed at the very top of its SERP, and these ads look quite similar to regular search results so you might not know the difference.
The companies that are running these ads have a vested interest in spreading misinformation regarding climate change so that they can bolster their own profit margins for the foreseeable future. The Guardian partnered with InfluenceMap, a think tank focusing on climate related issues, to see how many ads there were on such pages. They entered 78 different search queries that had something or the other to do with climate change, and the ads that they saw were rather jarring to say the least.
20% of the over 1,600 ads on the top of Google’s SERP with such queries came from fossil fuel oriented enterprises with all things having been considered and taken into account. That includes companies like ExxonMobil, and many of these companies are responsible for oil spills and the like as well. The presence of these companies and their ads might make it more difficult for users to get a balanced representation of what is actually going on in the world.
Read next: Social Media Videos Reaches Almost Equal Watch Time as TV, New Study Shows