|
John,
In 2021, Google promised to stop running ads on YouTube alongside content that denies the facts and causes of climate change.
But recently the Center for Countering Digital Hate identified 100 YouTube videos, receiving a total of over 18 million views, with accompanying ads making money for both YouTube and, in some cases, the climate deniers themselves.
YouTube may be the most prominent platform for these money-making climate change videos, but they are not the only media sources of such disinformation. For instance, digital media startup Semafor congratulated Senator Joe Manchin on his “victory” attaching completion of the controversial Mountain Valley Pipeline to the recent debt ceiling legislation.
It’s time to hold these companies accountable to live up to their own policies. Sign the petition now to tell them to stop monetizing media that spreads the lies of climate change deniers.
For example, a video titled “Who is Leonardo DiCaprio,” which was actually filled with claims that climate change is hoax and that the world is getting cooler, was supported by ads for the Paramount+ film “80 for Brady” starring Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, Rita Moreno, and Sally Field.
Jane Fonda, whose own political action committee fights climate change, said she was “appalled that an ad for one of my movies appears on one of those videos.” She added it was “abhorrent that YouTube would violate its own policy” by profiting on such content while “the earth is burning.”
Other climate change denial videos are connected to other ads. For instance, before a video claiming to show “how climate activists distort the evidence,” an ad ran for Alaska Airlines. Climate denying videos were accompanied by ads for such well-known businesses as Costco, Calvin Klein, Politico, Grubhub, and even Google itself. The ad for Google Search monetized a video claiming there was no scientific consensus for climate change.
Further research by Climate Action Against Disinformation, an international coalition of over 50 groups, identified another 100 videos monetized by YouTube that spread climate disinformation under a broader definition than that targeted by Google’s policies, including videos by Exxon Mobil and Fox News.
Exxon’s videos claim contributions to reducing carbon emissions that activists consider to be misleading “greenwashing.” And a monetized video by Fox News featuring Tucker Carlson called efforts to address climate change a “coordinated effort by the government of China to hobble the U.S. and the West and take its place as the leader of the world.”
Clearly, media platforms are not doing enough to police their sites and prevent the misuse of their advertising dollars.
Click here to hold them accountable and tell them to stop funding dangerous disinformation about the realities of climate change.
Thank you for bringing this issue to the attention of media outlets that benefit from failing to follow their own policies.
- Amanda
Amanda Ford, Director
Democracy for America
Advocacy Fund
|
