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Israel Is Buying Google Ads to Discredit the UN’s Top Gaza Aid Agency

www.wired.com Israel Is Buying Google Ads to Discredit the UN’s Top Gaza Aid Agency

The UNRWA calls Israel’s strategy of promoting alleged misinformation “destructive.”

Israel Is Buying Google Ads to Discredit the UN’s Top Gaza Aid Agency

Back In mid-January, Mara Kronenfeld was googling the name of the nonprofit she runs, which raises money in the US on behalf of the leading humanitarian aid provider in Gaza. Atop the search results for her organization—UNRWA USA, partner to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA)—she saw a surprising ad. It read like a promo from the UN agency, but the link directed to an Israeli government website. Kronenfeld says she had found the beginnings of a months-long online advertising campaign by Israel to discredit and defund UNRWA.

After seeing the ads—paid for by the Israeli Government Advertising Agency, according to details shown when clicking on the menu button beside them—Kronenfeld and her staff of seven quickly appealed to Google for help fighting what they viewed as a misinformation campaign. What has happened since shows the delicate relationship Google has kept with its advertising client, Israel, and the limits of the company’s policing of alleged misinformation in ads.

Several current and former Google employees tell WIRED the anti-UNRWA campaign is just one volley of ads that Israel has orchestrated in recent months that have drawn complaints both inside and outside of the company. The ads about UNRWA and another campaign targeting the Middle East have not been previously reported.

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  • I don't know what is so surprising about this to people.

    US company sees money on the table.... takes money 💰.

    This is the only transaction that is happening. Nothing else.

    • Google is running a blatant disinformation campaign to manufacture consent for Genocide. That's slightly past the point of showing off a new Ninja Airfryer.

      • Google is running a blatant disinformation campaign to manufacture consent for Genocide.

        Occam's razor died on this day. RIP.

        • After Kronenfeld and colleagues complained to Google in January about Israeli ads featuring headlines such as “UNRWA for Human Rights,” they say a company representative told them, without providing a reason, that the ads in question had been removed. Google’s Booth says there was no policy violation.

          By May, per screenshots seen by WIRED, Israel was back to promoting the same content but with tweaked verbiage—“UNRWA Neutrality Compromised,” “Israel Unveils UNRWA Issues,” and “Israel Advocates for Safer, Transparent Humanitarian Practices”—that more clearly previewed what users would get if they clicked.

          The revised ads, which linked to what UNRWA USA views as deeply dishonest distortions, have run across the US and Europe and continue to appear on Google as of this month despite additional UNRWA USA complaints, Kronenfeld says. She alleges these ads violate Google’s policies against “making claims that are demonstrably false and could significantly undermine participation or trust in an electoral or democratic process.” She also believes the ads go against Google’s policy barring the use of someone else’s trademarks “in a confusing, deceptive, or misleading way.”

          Google denied a trademark complaint that UNRWA lodged in May on the basis that it hadn’t obtained a trademark in Jordan, where its ad account is registered, according to the agency.

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