Google Allowed Advertisers To Target "Jewish Parasite," "Black People Ruin Everything"

[DonViejo]

Source: BuzzFeed News



Google prompted BuzzFeed News to run ads targeted to keywords like "black people ruin neighborhoods," then allowed the campaign to go live.

Posted on September 15, 2017, at 12:30 p.m.

Alex Kantrowitz
BuzzFeed News Reporter



Google, the world's biggest advertising platform, allows advertisers to specifically target ads to people typing racist and bigoted terms into its search bar, BuzzFeed News has discovered. Not only that, Google will suggest additional racist and bigoted terms once you type some into its ad buying tool.

Type "White people ruin," as a potential advertising keyword into Google's ad platform, and Google will suggest you run ads next to searches including "black people ruin neighborhoods." Type "Why do Jews ruin everything," and Google will suggest you run ads next to searches including "the evil jew" and "jewish control of banks."

BuzzFeed News ran an ad campaign targeted to all these keywords and others this week. The ads went live and were visible when we searched for the keywords we'd selected. Google's ad buying platform tracked the ad views. Following our inquiry, Google disabled every keyword in this ad campaign save one — an exact match for "blacks destroy everything," is still eligible. Google told BuzzFeed News that just because a phrase is eligible does not guarantee an ad campaign will run against it. A total of 17 ad impressions were served before the keywords were disabled.

"This violates our policies against derogatory speech and we have removed it," a Google spokesperson told BuzzFeed News after being sent a screenshot of live ad campaign targeted to the search terms "Zionists control the world."

Read more: https://www.buzzfeed.com/alexkantrowitz/google-allowed-advertisers-to-target-jewish-parasite-black?utm_term=.dd9lxxBGz#.pxDymmp08

[PoliticAverse]

1. This is what happens when you automate things too much. n/t

[LisaM]

2. EXACTLY!!!

You could probably employ about 100 people (chicken feed to a company as big as Google) and completely shut this down. Why won't they?

I have a couple of ideas why, but the main one is that the people who run Google actually love automation and AI. They love it. That's why they want self-driving cars. That's why they love taking satellite pictures of your house. I don't think they mean ill-will, they just love this stuff and they frankly have to be jolted out of their stupor about it to realize that many of us don't.

[Bradical79]

3. Right

Relliance on your AI and search suggestion algorithms leads to racist results because of how many racists infest the internet.

Microsoft's chat bot was a very visible example:

Link to tweet

[PoliticAverse]

5. Tay's successor has some issues as well...

https://www.engadget.com/2017/07/04/microsofts-zo-chatbot-picked-up-some-offensive-habits/

[voteearlyvoteoften]

4. So it's not just Facebook

Basically if you are paying anything goes.

[Hortensis]

6. Yes. No excuses. No pay, no subversion.