Google Allowed Advertisers To Target 'Jewish Parasite,' 'Black People Ruin Everything' (buzzfeed.com)

Alex Kantrowitz, reporting for BuzzFeed News: Google, the world's biggest advertising platform, allows advertisers to specifically target ads to people typing racist and bigoted terms into its search bar, BuzzFeed News has discovered. Not only that, Google will suggest additional racist and bigoted terms once you type some into its ad buying tool. Type "White people ruin," as a potential advertising keyword into Google's ad platform, and Google will suggest you run ads next to searches including "black people ruin neighborhoods." Type "Why do Jews ruin everything," and Google will suggest you run ads next to searches including "the evil jew" and "jewish control of banks." BuzzFeed News ran an ad campaign targeted to all these keywords and others this week. The ads went live and were visible when we searched for the keywords we'd selected. Google's ad buying platform tracked the ad views. Following our inquiry, Google disabled every keyword in this ad campaign save one -- an exact match for "blacks destroy everything," is still eligible. Google told BuzzFeed News that just because a phrase is eligible does not guarantee an ad campaign will run against it. A total of 17 ad impressions were served before the keywords were disabled.

Comments

Opportunities Lost

[Jonathan C. Patschke]

Ages ago, before torrents and automated enforcement of the DMCA, one could find direct-download "warez," "keygens," and "cracks" easily through major search engines.

One day, I was searching for a particular software crack so that I could try it without borrowing a key dongle, and I got a notice from Google directing me to a drug rehabilitation hotline. I'd never even considered that people might use Google to look for crack cocaine, but, thanks to the naiveté of keyword-matching, there was the opportunity to get help for an addiction I thankfully did not have.

I'm sure all sorts of hateful organizations paid Google for the opportunity to sell swag to bigots. I'm sure Google spent their money just as easily as they spent money from people buying access to nicer keywords.

Want to burn a bigot in the ass? Let it come out that every dime spent on buying access to "Jewish Parasite" and "Black People Ruin Everything" went to the ADL and NAACP. Give organizations like the ADL and NAACP access to those keywords gratis. Offer alternatives to hate as easily as alternatives to drugs.

Google missed an opportunity to, relatively cheaply, buy a huge PR win and help overcome hate.