Once a week, I have a column in News With Views ( http://www.newswithviews.com ). Last week, I wrote about “church leaders” fleeing from the culture war.
I heard from a couple of readers who wondered if I was quite all there: not because of anything I said, but because of an ad that ran on the same page. It featured a semi-nude woman posed seductively to invite “male gamers” into some kind of imaginary orgy. Hubba-hubba, etc. One reader wanted to know what I thought I was doing, having an ad like that to go along with my column. He said it looked like I was pushing soft-core pornography.
Who, me? I have absolutely nothing to do with whatever ads appear on my page. I passed my readers’ objections on to the editor-in-chief, who soon discovered what had happened.
The ads were put there by Google. ‘Nuff said. This has happened to me before, and to many other writers. You write a column opposing the same-sex parody of marriage, and right up next to it, Google drops an ad for a “gay dating” service.
I am convinced Google does this on purpose, to make the writer look like a hypocrite or, at best, an ass. There’s no reason why the ordinary reader should know how a particular ad winds up on a particular page. So a lot of these readers wind up blaming it on the poor, innocent writer. And the reds at Google score another point against conservatives.
So, in case you’ve ever wondered why an ad for a dominatrix appears next to a column objecting to aberrant sexual lifestyles, remember–the writer didn’t put it there. And on most websites, neither did the editor.
Google did it… to mess with your mind.
I have a website. I do not have Google ads. It is possible for anyone to do likewise. Perhaps columnists should suggest to NWV that they discontinue google ads, or change their site to make it unavailable to the ads. Pretty simple, really.
I’m sure they need the ads to stay in business–not so easy to give up a steady source of revenue.
I’ve seen ugly caricatures of President Trump on pro-Trump articles. I also see ugly pictures of obama and hillary on anti-obama/hillary articles. I’d love to see anti-Google ads EVERYWHERE! But of course, Google owns everywhere.
I think most people are aware that the ugly ads have nothing to do with the writer of the material we are reading. Those who do not understand need to pay more attention.
I have been blamed for it, though, by a few inattentive and uninsightful readers.
Websites containing ads most often use advertisers to help fund their work – just like the profuse ads on television that help to keep the ‘programming’ on air. The networks make a big deal of letting the viewers know that the views expressed are not necessarily their own (that goes for the programs as well as the ads).
Google, Facebook and YouTube are actuality spies (and no, that isn’t too harsh). They are subversive and practice censorship. Just look what’s happening today – conservative and Christian viewpoints are being censored, conservative and Christian videos are being removed and/or demonetized, all while the filth and perverse are lauded and pushed upon us, and Google follows us everywhere we travel on the web. Just look at the ‘ads of interest’ that pop up when you visit any website. Usually among them is an ad for something you’ve viewed in the recent past. Free press? No such thing. Just sayin’ . . .
If I sound cynical, it’s because I am!
The ads any one person sees might vary considerably from what another person sees. I see ads aimed at people in my region of the country and aimed at my demographic group. A woman, half my age, in the industrial belt would probably see something far different.
A few years ago, I bought a movie on Amazon and it suggested another movie that I might like. The suggested movie was aimed at a certain religious group and for the next few weeks, most of the ads I saw were aimed at that particular religious group.
I don’t like it one bit, I think it infringes on privacy, but there’s little we can do.