How Climate Change Deniers Rise To the Top in Google Searches (nytimes.com)

If you searched for the words "climate change" into Google, until earlier this week, you could have gotten an unexpected result: ads that call global warming a hoax. "Scientists blast climate alarm," said one that appeared at the top of the search results page during a recent search, pointing to a website, DefyCCC, that asserted: "Nothing has been studied better and found more harmless than anthropogenic CO2 release." Another ad proclaimed: "The Global Warming Hoax -- Why the Science Isn't Settled," linking to a video containing unsupported assertions, including that there is no correlation between rising levels of greenhouse gases and higher global temperatures. These references were first reported by The New York Times (the link may be paywalled). From a report: America's technology giants have come under fire for their role in the spread of fake news during the 2016 presidential campaign, prompting promises from Google and others to crack down on sites that spread disinformation. Less scrutinized has been the way tech companies continue to provide a mass platform for the most extreme sites among those that use false or misleading science to reject the overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change. Google's search page has become an especially contentious battleground between those who seek to educate the public on the established climate science and those who reject it. Not everyone who uses Google will see climate denial ads in their search results. Google's algorithms use search history and other data to tailor ads to the individual, something that is helping to create a highly partisan internet. A recent search for "climate change" or "global warming" from a Google account linked to a New York Times climate reporter did not return any denial ads. The top results were ads from environmental groups like the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Environmental Defense Fund. But when the same reporter searched for those terms using private browsing mode, which helps mask identity information from Google's algorithms, the ad for DefyCCC popped up.
[...] The climate denialist ads are an example of how contrarian groups can use the internet's largest automated advertising systems to their advantage, gaming the system to find a mass platform for false or misleading claims.

Comments

Someone said once...

[110010001000]

""He who controls the medium controls the message. He who controls the message controls the masses."

The NY Times hates competition.

Re:Someone said once...

[Altrag]

That quote is rather irrelevant, unless you've got a few spare Earths laying around to run experiments on..?

Assuming you don't, our next best option is to model the data we have as accurately as possible and make predictions based on those models.

So far all of the models predict "we're fucked if we don't change our ways" even if they don't all agree on how badly or how soon we're fucked, with some even suggesting we're past the point of changing our ways and fucked no matter what.

There's a reason why the climate scientists (and yes, I feel justified using the generalized term!) report actual data generated from actual models while the deniers tend to go with things like opinion polls -- the deniers just don't have a whole lot of data to work with and much of what they do have is pretty questionable.

Capitalism

[ceoyoyo]

Google is a for-profit advertising company. You say they present ads from people who pay them to do so? And they tailor your search results to make you think they're the best search engine so you look at more ads? Shocking.

Either legislate unbiased search and advertising and give up the pretence of pure capitalism, or eat your dogfood and quit complaining.

These are ADVERTISING COMPANIES

[michaelcole]

Every company uses "tech", so unless you're talking about buying buggy whips from the Amish, let's call a spade a spade.

Advertising companies take money and spread lies. Get over it. Google does it on your searches. Facebook does it on your friendships.

The difference is...

[Kludge]

The NY Times is a source of curated information.
Google is an index of the internet. The internet is a cesspool. Google is an index of a cesspool.

Really Fake News From Climate Deniers ?

[Crashmarik]

Last Week MsMash posted a story about how cheap Green Electricity was in Germany all the while never bothering to mention the cost to the consumer was $0.30/KWH

Seems there's plenty of shit to go around but as usual some people don't think their shit stinks.

Re:Really Fake News From Climate Deniers ?

[ClickOnThis]

What it all comes down to is that you need to have an education to make sense of the news.

You need an education to function in society. And IMHO, you should not need to pay beyond your means to receive it. And part of that education should be the ability to recognize rational, fact-based statements from skewed opinions laced with logical fallacies.

There is a difference between fake news and incomplete news.

This. And I'll go further: fake news is created by fake reporters. It is a deliberate fabrication, intended to enrage or frighten the reader. It is not the same as news with errors or even news with a bias. Incomplete news is still news, but with a disingenuous taint (if done deliberately.)

This is why fact-checking websites (like snopes or politifact) have a gradual scale on which they rate the truth of statements by public individuals, and not just a true/false assessment. The truth is an absolute, but how someone conveys it can be complicated.

Re:Really Fake News From Climate Deniers ?

[Anonymous Coward]

See, you can't objectively explain what's going on yourself, yet you act like any news that doesn't exactly report the entire story with all its nuances is just as bad as a bold faced lie. That's asinine.

It is true that the cost of electricity dipped below zero at the wholesale level, and there are indeed some large consumers of electricity who can take advantage of that. That is by design. The negative price represents the cost that some power plants would incur by throttling their output, as in, it costs more to produce less electricity. It's just cheaper to pay someone to consume the "unneeded" electricity. The story created the impression that average consumers got paid, and that was wrong, but the actual pricing event did occur, and not for the first time.

Electricity is heavily taxed in Germany, and renewables are heavily subsidized. Although, the actual legal construct is not a tax and not a subsidy. Is it acceptable to call it a tax anyway, or does that make it fake news? The subsidies are subsiding, and again, that is by design. As the cost of electricity generation from sun and wind is coming down, the need for incentives also decreases. Other forms of electricity generation have been heavily subsidized too. Nuclear for example enjoys government guarantees that, had they been provided by private enterprise, would render this form of electricity generation entirely uneconomical. The waste disposal costs have largely been externalized as well. The two new "British" nuclear reactors at Hinkley Point will receive 100 billion Euros in subsidies, according to the BBC. The consortium of French and Chinese investors got a price guarantee that is higher than for electricity from onshore wind turbines. There is also an agreement that the decommissioning and waste disposal costs are limited and any costs exceeding that limit will be borne by the public. So yeah, renewables are subsidized, but that too is "lying by omission". It would be news if they weren't subsidized.

It is important to understand that neither "half the truth is often a great lie" nor "lying by omission" is meant to legitimize actual lies. Climate change denial is not "lying by omission". It's lying. The truth can be used in much the same way as a lie, to mislead, but it is still the truth, not a lie, and that difference is important.

Re:What if I believe but don't give a damn?

[quantaman]

I don't deny climate change or the man-made CO2 volume. What I deny is that I give a fuck. I might have cared before it became an SJW pet issue and another reason for the far-left to shake their finger in my face.

So you're going to screw over the planet and a lot of humanity to shake your finger in the face of "the far-left"? (actually, everybody but the far-right).

The extremists on both sides made it partisan.

No, the major corporations with a vested interest in a fossil fuel economy made it partisan.

The international idea that Americans should compensate the rest of the word for emitting CO2 earlier than them.

Not just Americans, also Europeans, Canadians, Australians, Japanese, and even Columbians. And the retribution for historical emissions is one way to frame it... if not for the obvious inconsistency with Japan's large contribution.

A better way to frame it is when there's an important job to do you suck it up and get it done. And if that involves wealthy countries lending assistance to poor countries who otherwise don't have the economic capacity to carry out those measures then you do it.

If my grandparents had a white picket fence and a CO2 monster V8 Corvette, then GOOD. I'm glad they weren't living in fucking mud huts and collecting wives.

And no rant against SJWs is complete without a completely unnecessary negative stereotype with just enough deniability so it isn't obviously racist.

Re:I'm looking for a good alternative to Slashdot.

[GameboyRMH]

If you think this article is a politics article rather than a science article, you might be looking for a place like Free Republic, or InfoWars.

Re:What if I believe but don't give a damn?

[RazorSharp]

This is a problem with partisanship. That you would adhere to a position you know to be illogical simply for the sake of being consistent with your party of choice is sad. This attitude among elected officials is what drives partisanship and gridlock in Washington.

I'm a person that would be described as liberal, but I don't support gun control. Just because I think the NRA and many other anti-gun control people are stupid and annoying doesn't change my position. I'm also dismayed by some of the over-sensitivity on college campuses and in the media, but using pejoratives like "SJW" is divisive and does nothing to persuade others of this opinion.

Climate change matters. Not for the political victories of one party or another, but for the future of humanity. I don't want my children or maybe some day grandchildren to grow up in a world facing global catastrophe. Why would anyone want that? Political expediency doesn't justify immorality.

Re:Well played

[ClickOnThis]

The AGW zealots posted this right when everyone else is too busy shoveling global warming out of their driveways.

Global Warming -> Climate
The stuff in your driveway -> Weather

Learn the difference. That is all.

Re:false or misleading

[RazorSharp]

When one isn't an expert in a certain field and lacks the time/ability/desire to become an expert in said field, it's only logical to defer to expert opinion. No one has the ability to be an expert in every field, so everyone has to do this if they want to have a somewhat coherent understanding of the world. Relying on scientific consensus is something everyone does to arrive at logical conclusions. Even scientists.

Re:Well played

[Gravis Zero]

The AGW zealots posted this right when everyone else is too busy shoveling global warming out of their driveways.

It sure reads like you don't understand the difference between climate change and the weather. The weather is going to become increasingly volatile which means you are going to get more extreme weather patterns (larger range of temperature) thus altering the climate. Ergo climate change. However, the overall temperature of the planet is still going to rise. Ergo global warming.

Please educate yourself on this very important topic.

Re:Proven?

[mi]

Of course climate science is falsifiable.

Is it? Not according to this climate-scientist from Australia, nor according to this professor concurring with this blogger (both of them hilariously repeating in earnest this earlier satire).

It's those subtheories that you really need to falsify.

No, I don't. As I explained to you before, the burden of proof is not on me, but on those, who want to compel me — on pain of higher taxes, loss of freedoms, and even actual criminal prosecutions — to change my way of life.