Researchers find sites monetizing health misinformation with Google's AdSense and DoubleClick; Google says the specific sites don't violate its policy
Ruth Reader / Fast Company : Tweets: @slpng_giants , @penamerica , and @matthewstoller Tweets: @slpng_giants : .@google refuses to do any meaningful moderation on the sites they monetize with ads. They are not just encouraging, but profiting from hate, disinformation & extremism on the backs of advertisers who are unaware of what they're supporting. This should be grounds for a lawsuit. https://twitter.com/... PEN America / @penamerica : Google is featuring ads for organizations such as UNICEF and One Medical onto websites that publish health misinformation, leading critics to claim the platform is profiting off of harmful and misleading content. https://www.fastcompany.com/ ... Matt Stoller / @matthewstoller : Google spreads divisive content because it's *profitable.* If you want to change Google's behavior change the way it makes money. https://www.fastcompany.com/ ...
Context & Ripple Effects
This 2020 report is an early data point in a pattern that later reporting kept confirming: the [[a:946360|Global Disinformation Index had already estimated adtech spends ~$235M a year on misinformation sites]] before Fast Company documented Google's AdSense and DoubleClick doing exactly that with brands like UNICEF and One Medical. Google's response — that the specific sites don't violate policy — set the template for how the company would handle each subsequent exposure.
The arc since has been one of repeated findings and unchanged policy: ProPublica later traced [[a:984327|Google's ad revenue flowing to prolific health, election, and climate disinfo publishers across three continents]], and separately showed the [[a:986092|Display Network lets site owners stay anonymous while running ads beside pirated content and disinfo]] — the same opacity that makes it hard for advertisers like UNICEF to know where their money lands.
First-order effects
- Advertisers including UNICEF and One Medical are funding health misinformation sites without knowing it, because programmatic placement through AdSense and DoubleClick gives them no visibility into where ads run.
Second-order effects
- Advocacy groups like Sleeping Giants and PEN America are forced into a naming-and-shaming cycle, and Google's policy-based defense invites the same scrutiny that later caught it accepting ads from top firearms sellers despite its stated ban — a pattern ProPublica documented with 120M+ impressions from 15 US gun sellers.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the durable issue is structural: automated ad auctions monetize content at a scale that outpaces any policy enforcement, pushing pressure toward advertiser-side tools and regulation rather than platform self-policing.
The trend: Programmatic adtech's scale keeps outrunning platform moderation, leaving advertisers unknowingly funding misinformation despite repeated policy assurances from Google.