Ad exchanges make climate change misinformation profitable, even when it’s against their rules

This report was published in partnership with Climate Action Against Disinformation. You can also read the full report on our website.

Climate change is real. You know this. We know this. Scientists know this.

But ad exchanges continue to help sites profit from climate denialism, incentivizing the spread of climate lies.

A Check My Ads and Climate Action Against Disinformation investigation identified 15 ad exchanges that say they work with climate misinformation publishers — some even when that monetization goes against their policies.

Who is monetizing climate misinformation?  

Check My Ads used well-known.dev to cross reference disclosures between the ad exchanges and three websites posting climate denial content: townhall.com, foxnews.com, and theepochtimes.com. These disclosures, sellers.json and ads.txt, are a voluntary system that lets both ad exchanges and sellers of ad space declare who they are working with.

According to that analysis, several ad exchanges say they monetize all three of the websites we investigated, including: Appnexus/Xandr, Google, Lijit/Sovrn, Pubmatic, and TheMediaGrid.

Amazon, Criteo, OpenX, and Rubicon Project/Magnite work with Townhall and Fox News, while LiveIntent and RevContent declare relationships with Townhall and the Epoch Times. AdYouLike works with both Fox News and the Epoch Times.

Colossus and Dianomi, meanwhile, disclose monetizing the Epoch Times. TripleLift works with Fox News.

Eight of these exchanges had no readily available policies that could prohibit the publishers they work with from engaging in this kind of climate denial — but the other seven ad exchanges did have these kinds of rules.

Google’s publisher policy explicitly prohibits “content that contradicts authoritative scientific consensus on climate change.”

Meanwhile, Amazon’s content policy prohibits “exploitation of sensitive events such as natural disasters,” as well as “content that revolves around highly debated social topics” and false content.

The policies and guidelines from Criteo, Sovrn, OpenX, and Revcontent all also bar the websites they work with from publishing falsehoods.

And, according to an archived copy, Appnexus/Xandr’s policy prohibits “content that Xandr reasonably deems to be (a) morally reprehensible or patently offensive, and (b) without redeeming social value.”

To sum all of this up: 15 different ad exchanges seem to be monetizing three websites publishing climate denial.Eight of those exchanges don’t even have rules against this. Seven of them do — but they’re working with these sites anyway. (If some of these names sounded familiar when it comes to profiting off climate misinformation, there’s good reason for that.)

The profits for both adtech companies and climate denial sites are very real. A recent Global Witness report estimates that the Epoch Times “generated close to $1.5 million in combined revenue for Google and the website owners over the last 12 months.”

How much would that number drop if Google actually enforced its policy of not monetizing climate denialism?

Climate misinformation examples, debunked 

The three websites we focused on for this investigation — townhall.com, foxnews.com, and theepochtimes.com — all published multiple articles that downplayed or outright denied climate change.

Here are examples from all three sites and explanations of how they go beyond an article and into climate change misinformation.

Townhall:

Article: Like Communism, the Climate Change Agenda Will Kill Millions

The so-called "agenda" won’t — but climate change itself is estimated to be on track to cause 40 million additional deaths by the end of the century.

Article: The Fake Climate Consensus

There’s a 97% consensus among climate scientists that humans are causing climate change.

Article: Extreme Climate Policies Inviting High-Intensity Wildfires

It’s not the policies — it’s climate change, which is making the environment hotter and drier. Then all it takes is a spark.

Fox News:

Article: Physicist to Tucker Carlson: Climate change is ‘fiction of the media’ 

Carlson’s source here is Steve Koonin, who regularly argues the science isn’t settled on climate change. Once again, it is. 

Article: Democrats blaming climate change for Hurricane Ian at odds with science, experts say 

This story fact checks a claim that isn’t being made — the idea that climate change increases hurricane frequency. In fact, NASA suggests the opposite might be possible. However, the hurricanes that do form are more likely to become intense as a result of climate change — which is the fact that was actually being acknowledged following Hurricane Ian. 

Article: Scientists challenge 'alarm bells' in IPCC climate change report: 'Not the end of the world' 

The scientists cited here are Bjorn Lomberg, who has been described as a leading climate change skeptic, Patrick Michaels, who once estimated “40%” of his funding came from the oil industry, David Legates, a signatory of the Oregon Petition that argues against the realities of global warming, and Michael Shellenberger, who has said climate change is “not even our most serious environmental problem.”

Epoch Times:

Article: Texas Wildfires Have Nothing to Do With Climate Change

As we already mentioned, climate change very much does create the conditions for more destructive wildfires — and “unseasonably warm temperatures” in Texas, made more likely by climate change, had a hand in these specific blazes.

Article: Scientists Expose Major Problems With Climate Change Data

The scientists cited here are Willie Soon, a “prominent climate change skeptic who has recieved much of his research funding from the oil and gas industry,” and two scientists who work for his institute, as well as Tony Heller, who calls global warming the “biggest scientific fraud in history.”

Article: Sunlight and Clouds, Not CO2, Drive Earth’s Climate, New Study Finds

When CO2 becomes trapped in the atmosphere, it warms the planet — and human activities “have raised the atmosphere’s carbon dioxide content by 50% in less than 200 years,” according to NASA. Or you can trust the above study from guys who got caught publishing climate research under fake names.

All of these articles show how the sites downplay the scientific consensus, risks, and in some cases reality, of climate change.

Despite this, we found 15 ad exchanges that made sure these websites had the infrastructure in place to pocket advertising profits.

Do advertisers care? 

If advertisers and the exchanges they worked with wanted to fund climate denial, that would be their choice.

But brands don’t generally want to run their ads — and therefore fund — climate denial content. In fact, brands have been so leery of climate issues that they started blocking terms related to climate change from their ad buys, defunding essential, factual climate reporting in the process.

This became such a significant issue that the IAB, an advertising industry group, put out a tipsheet in 2021 explaining "how brands can develop a nuanced and proportionate approach to brand safety and suitability” related to climate change.

Climate science is real, and so is the desire from advertisers to avoid funding anything that disputes this clear scientific consensus.

It’s time for ad exchanges to listen to advertisers, science, and their own policies and stop making misinformation profitable.

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