all appearing next to false content about the election.
2/8
The Google-funded websites falsely claim:
❌ Mail-in ballots are being used to steal the election
❌ Pandemics are “manipulated crises” to influence elections
❌ There will be a planned "civil war" on election day
❌ There is collusion to rig the result
3/8
Brands pay to have their ads featured across Google’s advertising networks, but don’t know where Google places them.
Every time an ad appears on a website, Google and the website both profit.
4/8
Google's own policies state that they do not place adverts on websites which make claims that are:
“demonstrably false and could significantly undermine participation or trust in an electoral or democratic process”.
@SundarPichai, why are you not enforcing this policy?
5/8
Just 6 sites we found promoting misinformation about the election were viewed 40 million times last month.
Using Google’s own revenue calculator, we estimate that the misinformation sites make $3.4M a year from Google Ads, while Google also makes millions itself.
6/8
Join us in calling on @Google CEO @sundarpichai to put people before profit and stop funding misinformation that threatens the health of democracy.
For more information, see our @SFFakeNews campaign, calling on brands to stop funding election misinformation by adding these sites to their advertising blocklist.
Volunteers with the Youth Against Misinformation project, trained by us and @RestlessDev, found and reported 912 misinformation posts to YouTube, Facebook, Instagram & Twitter.
Just 21 were removed, with 3 of the accounts removed and 21 flagged as false but left online.
Posts which Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube chose to leave online include false claims that vaccines:
❌ Cause autism and cancer
❌ Make you more susceptible to Covid-19
❌ Are used to “microchip” people
❌ Aren’t needed, as there are cures for Covid-19
THREAD: Ty and Charlene Bollinger are anti-vaxx entrepreneurs who promote the pro-Trump QAnon conspiracy.
Our report exposes how they are using the social reach granted to them by Big Tech to launch a new anti-vaxx Super PAC ahead of the upcoming US elections.
The Bollingers run a network of accounts with 1.6 million followers.
It's an elaborate marketing funnel designed to sell books and DVDs about vaccines, cancer and Covid.
New signups get a free “Coronavirus field guide” that claims the disease is being used to push vaccines.
But the Bollingers don’t just push anti-vaxx misinformation to their followers: they promote the pro-Trump QAnon conspiracy theory too.
They claim that Trump is fighting the deep state and a global elite involved in child trafficking and paedophilia.
New polling from YouGov for our anti-vaxx report shows social media use and reluctance to vaccinate are linked.
It also reveals that 31% of Brits and 41% of Americans don’t plan to get a Covid vaccine – enough to make a vaccine ineffective. counterhate.co.uk/anti-vaxx-indu…
As well as Katie Hopkins, we requested that @Twitter review George Galloway’s presence on their platform when we met them this week.
Galloway uses @Twitter to inculcate antisemitism. Here’s why @Twitter should remove him [THREAD]
Galloway uses @Twitter to promote antisemitic conspiracy theories that Israel is behind ISIS, Al Qaeda, problems facing Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, and opposition to Galloway’s unsuccessful 2015 general election campaign.
Galloway used @Twitter to breach the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism, by labelling the creation of Israel “a racist endeavour.” In the week of Holocaust Memorial Day, it evidences Twitter's toxicity that this tweet is still up.
Following our meeting with @Twitter this week, they have locked Katie Hopkins out of her account & accepted that she violated their hateful conduct policy. Here are just some reasons we have called on them to permanently remove her from their platform [THREAD]
Hopkins was fired by LBC after using @Twitter to call for “a final solution” in response to the Manchester Arena terror attack, echoing the Nazi term for the Holocaust.
Hopkins has also used @Twitter to spread misinformation, including making libellous claims about Jack Monroe, for which she was successfully sued.