Google announced on Thursday that it will ban all advertising and cease to fund media and videos that question the so-called scientific consensus on climate change. The tech giant announced that it will no longer allow advertising on “content that contradicts well-established scientific consensus around the existence and causes of climate change.”
The new ban on climate realism will apply to ads that Google places online and on videos that run on the company’s video-sharing platform YouTube. This newest example of Big Tech censorship will include content that denies humans are the main cause of climate change and any content that treats “climate change as a hoax or a scam.”
Bloomberg broke the story yesterday:
“We’ve heard directly from a growing number of our advertising and publisher partners who have expressed concerns about ads that run alongside or promote inaccurate claims about climate change,” Google said on Thursday. “Advertisers simply don’t want their ads to appear next to this content. And publishers and creators don’t want ads promoting these claims to appear on their pages or videos.”
For the new rule, Google says that it consulted with the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) — which isn’t surprising at all. The UN’s IPCC is the world’s top pusher of the climate-emergency hoax.
Google is the largest digital ad seller in the world, and says it has been criticized for allowing companies that claim to debunk or deny the theory of anthropogenic climate change to advertise on its platforms. That practice will end next month, the company says.
Previously, in 2018, Google-owned YouTube had begun adding “fact-checks” to videos that offered opposing views on climate change. Now, it looks to demonetize such content and hide it on its search engine.
The censorship announcement came just a day after Google announced its plan to offer consumers “more sustainable” choices.
“Climate change is no longer a distant threat — it’s increasingly local and personal. Around the world, wildfires, flooding and other extreme weather continue to affect our health, our economies and our future together on our planet. We need urgent and meaningful solutions to address this pressing challenge,” wrote Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google and its parent company, Alphabet, Inc.
In that announcement, Pichai announced even more search-engine tinkering, saying, “When people come to Google Search with questions about climate change, we’ll show authoritative information from sources like the United Nations, in addition to the existing news sources that we currently raise up in the carousel.”
In addition to censorship and search-engine tinkering meant to avoid any debate regarding climate change, Google also promises to post carbon emissions information on its Google Flights app, push lower emission appliances, support “clean energy” in homes, and adjust its Google Maps feature to show consumers the “most fuel efficient route” when traveling.
Last month, fellow tech giant Facebook announced its own plans to reduce “misinformation” regarding climate change. Among Facebook’s measures are expanding its Climate Science Center, announcing a $ 1 million investment in a new climate grant program, and promising to elevate young climate voices on its platform.
These announcements by Google and Facebook are yet another incremental step toward banning any dissent on climate change outright.
Back in the good old days, when science was set apart from politics, people used to be encouraged to put all ideas on the table and let the facts decide what was true. Those days are apparently gone, at least when it comes to so-called climate change.
Look at Bloomberg’s tweet regarding its breaking story: “Google will ban ads and stop funding media that contradict scientific consensus on climate change.”
“Consensus” means nothing when it comes to science — it’s a political word being used by political actors when it comes to climate change.
As Michael Crichton once said, “Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right.”
Google’s actions are not consistent with true scientific inquiry. They’re consistent with authoritarianism.
