Slashdot Mirror
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.
[...] 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.
First it was global warming. Then that wasnâ(TM)t proven so it shifted to climate change. Seems suspicious that there are a lot of people making a lot of money and fame off of something they canâ(TM)t even be consistent about.
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
Yeah, it would be nice if they would actually start more carefully vetting sites based on real science!
to reject the overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change
Oh, my bad, you actually want to base results on popularity, not scientific validity. Carry on then.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
curated...LOL
Nope. That's gone.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I have 800,000 years of direct, measurable evidence that the earth's climate cycles between warming and cooling, and that we are, in fact, in the fifth such cycle.
You, on the other hand, have what-if models that account only for unending warming, something which hasn't happened in 800,000 years.
I don't know about you, but I think it's better to go with the 800,000-year-old patterns that I can directly observe in ice core samples, rather than your wonky spreadsheets. And if you want to make an extraordinary claim that 800,000 years of climate cycles are suddenly coming to an end, brother, you'd better have a whale of a lot of extraordinary hard EVIDENCE. Not spreadsheets.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
Odd you claim 'scientists' won't let you scrutinize their theories when the theories and the methods used to test the theories are published in journals that you can get free access to at your public library or via google scholar. Odd you claim you don't like adjusted data when both the raw and adjusted data as well as the source to the software used to make the adjustments is available to download for free from NASA, NCDC and the UK Met Office.
I guess you real problem is you been reading to much of wattsupwiththat.com or the cato institute. Stop quoting the likes Tony Watts, Chris Monckton, the Pielkie's and actually read what the scientist actually say about global warming.
It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
They curate articles that fit their bias. Even if they collect and publish a specific flavor of garbage, it's still garbage.
It's a perfect time for being wasted.
A perfect time to watch the stars.
- Burden Brothers, "Beautiful Night"