This is the third time I’m seeing this type of political smear ad run via Google Ads, specifically through Google News on my phone’s “Google Now” screen. The ads are supposedly paid for by Indian companies with nondescript names like “Thiess India Private Limited”. The ad usually features an AI-generated image of a left-leaning politician appearing injured or in handcuffs. I’ve seen doctored images of Jagmeet Singh and Mark Carney so far. This particular ad pointed to a fake website setup to look identical to a CBC News article, with more misinformation. I’ve reported this to Google, CBC, and The Walrus.
I think it’s good that people are moving away from Google and American companies, and I will probably do the same some time soon. However, I don’t think that actually helps with this issue, since thousands of normies will continue to be manipulated by these ads.
I’d recommend CBC Gem and Nebula as a YouTube alternatives, but I’m going to have a hard time getting off YouTube too. I’ll probably switch to reading books and watching Canadian-made movies.
Fair point the normies are the ones who those ads are aimed at, not the people who are on here. I use Nebula, again I paid for the life time membership hoping it would be around for longer than the three years or whatever. I use it but there are things on youtube that are not on Nebula.