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 started boycotting most of the Google services prior to Trumps first term, it took a couple of years for me to remove everything from gmail but it was worth the effort.
I use two piholes on my network to block ads and trackers, every so often I try to get a VPN working so that I can use my pihole setup when I am away from home.
I am transitioning away from being an Apple user so when my Google boycott started I just adopted Apple News, because of the boycott US movement I have moved to CBC news. I am sure there are other apps/services but after cancelling all my streaming services I decided to pay for CBC Gem. Sure I was not seeing ads on the Gem app with pihole but I do not have access to the news without it.
I was fine with paying for YouTube premium when I had started the Google boycott because ads got wacky (think Cialis followed by some adolescent zit remover), if there was a good youtube alternative I would have moved to it. I still use iOS so I thought I was going to be stuck with youtube ads until I can get my home theatre pi set up but I found the app Unwatched.
The Google does not care about the fake ads that it publishes unless enough people complain or stop using a service. As a Canadian I have stepped back from paying google, either with money or my eyeballs.
When I was moving away from gmail I started using Apple’s hide my email, but when the boycott started I moved all my passwords to 1Password and moved my domain from .com to .ca while moving to hosthero I have a blog but I also got the unlimited email package I give everything I sign up for its own email address. I am worthless to advertisers and love it!
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.