Google’s billion-dollar advertising business is financing and earning revenue from articles that challenge the existence of climate change and question its severity, according to a new investigation by Global Witness. The articles in question ran on The Epoch Times, a vastly successful and influential conservative news organization powered by Falun Gong, a religious group persecuted in China, which originally launched The Epoch Times as a free propaganda newsletter two decades ago to oppose the Chinese Communist Party.
Global Witness’ investigation found that Google placed advertisements alongside articles by The Epoch Times, which are estimated to have generated close to $1.5 million in combined revenue for Google and the website owners over the last year. Global Witness believes that some of these articles breached Google’s own publishing policies that do not allow “unreliable and harmful claims” that “contradict authoritative scientific consensus on climate change”. Is it possible to have accountability in AdTech? I spoke to Guy Porter, senior investigator on the digital threat team at Global Witness and author of their latest investigation. Porter works in the climate disinformation unit, which leads investigations linking climate denial and disinformation to big tech and the platforms.
NJ: Why is this investigation important?
Guy Porter: We think this is really important both because of scale and the apparatus that supports disinformation: Facebook advertising, Google monetization. Google commands the largest share of the digital advertising market and is helping to fund – and making money from – what we believe is opportunistic and dangerous information, Additionally, The Epoch Times is a big media empire. In 2019, it was one of the leading spenders on pro-Trump ads on Facebook. We’re talking about big money. Its publisher, Epoch Times Association reported a revenue of $128 million in 2022.
NJ: In response to your investigation in May 2024, which looked at Epoch Times spreading disinformation via Meta’s advertising platforms, the media organization responded saying that science around climate change, like anything else, was always a matter up for debate and that scientists often have differing opinions. How do you respond to that dizzying combination of free speech absolutism and climate change denial?
GP: The free speech argument is an unhelpful tactic that helps to delay climate action. These articles present these fringe views that are not peer reviewed as a growing consensus of scientific fact. We welcome people debating climate solutions. And we think that’s really important to tackling the urgent climate crisis. But there are changes that need to be made to tackle monetization of this kind of content.
NJ: One of the changes you’re hoping for is ad tech regulation. What would that look like?
GP: Both the UN and also the EU Commission are looking at this really closely as we put forward in this investigation, advertisers are also suffering from limited transparency around AdTech. While there are tools that Google supplies to assure advertisers where their ads will appear, the system is opaque and advertisers rely on Google to stick to its own policies on climate denial.
NJ: One of the places where these ads denying climate change are running is in Brazil, where the impact of climate change has been relentless and devastating. Much of the climate disinformation is not disseminated in English: is that also why we need to pay attention to it?
GP: Absolutely. We also know from previous research by ProPublica that Google’s performance in non English language websites is not great. The 2025 climate change conference COP is being held in Brazil – and we know that disinformation is rife around these meetings. We believe it’s crucial to protect the media ecosystem there.
