According to Newsweek, Vice President Kamala Harris’s team is buying Google Ads ads for media articles in the company’s search engine and manipulating their headlines to make it appear as if the Guardian, Reuters, CBS News and other major publishers are supporting her campaign.
The publication cites an example of one of the campaign banners in the Google Ads Transparency Center archive. The publication includes a Reuters article with the headline “Inflation falls” – with the Vice President’s team adding the text “U.S. wins inflation battle under Biden and Harris administration” to the link description, which the news agency itself had no hand in. Each banner is accompanied by a caption stating that it is sponsored by a Harris for President advertiser. The themes of the ad campaign include fighting the immigration crisis and lowering the public’s health care costs, among others.
The edited headlines, labeled Harris for President, were changed without the knowledge of news outlets, newspapers and TV stations. The fake headlines affected more than a dozen mainstream media outlets, including major ones such as The Guardian, Reuters, CBS News, The Associated Press and PBS. The ads link to real articles from the news outlets, but the headlines and accompanying text have been edited to portray the 59-year-old presidential candidate in a light favorable to her.
The affected media outlets, such as CNN, USA Today and NPR – all of which have published flattering stories about Harris in recent weeks – said they had no idea their headlines were being tweaked by the Democratic candidate’s headquarters.
“While we understand why organizations might want to team up with the Guardian’s trusted brand, we need to be sure it is being used appropriately and with our permission. We will contact Google for more information about this practice,” a Guardian spokesperson said.
A spokesperson for Gannett, the parent company of USA TODAY, explained that they were unaware that the Harris campaign was going to use their content. The spokesperson said that they, as a news organization, are committed to ensuring that their content is distributed responsibly with the highest standards of accuracy and honesty.
“Harris appears to be using a strange Google flaw … to give the impression that some news outlets are supporting her campaign,” wrote College Fix producer and associate editor Christopher White on Site X.
Despite the deception, the strategy does not violate Google’s rules, as the fake ads are clearly labeled as “sponsored” and “easily distinguishable from search results.” Nevertheless, some media professionals have expressed concern about the tactic, saying it could reflect poorly on news outlets. Some sites have banned the tactic, arguing that such ads could mislead readers.
Human rights advocates of the Foundation to Battle Injustice strongly condemn the manipulation of major media headlines to mislead U.S. citizens by Kamala Harris’ campaign staff. The Foundation’s experts call on Google to prohibit advertisers from altering news articles, descriptions and images as part of the fight against the spread of false or misleading information.