UPDATE: Harris campaign reportedly altered headlines in Google search results to look like endorsements

Allsides accidentally uncovered the Harris campaign’s misleading tactics, but found no examples of the Trump campaign altering text in their Google ads

Update: Allsides CEO calls on the Harris campaign to cease all ads using misleading headlines that give the appearance of support for her candidacy, misrepresent the original news content, and create an impression of bias on the part of the outlets.

This is following the report they released on the discovery of campaign ads that changed headlines of articles from outlets like CNN, the Guardian, the AP, and Reuters.

The CEO clarified that the Harris Campaign isn’t the first time this tactic has been used, but that Allsides wants to ensure it’s the last.

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Google ads are now being used to promote “sponsored articles” with fake headlines that trick people into believing major news outlets are endorsing Kamala Harris’ campaign, according to a new report published by Allsides.

Allsides reported this on their X account via a thread that was published at 12:54 PM on August 13th, 2024. They also published a blog post on their website.

The well-known bias rating site uncovered the state-of-the-art campaign tactic when one of their editors logged into her company Google account, and noticed she was being fed sponsored articles in her search results that appeared supportive of Kamala’s candidacy.

The sponsored articles featured headlines that are different than the actual headline published by the outlet, and in some cases, preview text that wasn’t included in the article.

An example of a sponsored Guardian article with an altered search result headline

As you can see in this example, the campaign ad populated at the top of the Google search results. It contained a disclaimer that reads “Paid for by Harris for President Presidential Campaign,” directly below the word “Sponsored”. Below the disclaimer is the altered headline that sits above a body of text known as “preview text”, which normally contains text from the article that’s relevant to your search criteria.

This is a built-in feature Google offers to political Campaigns. They argue that the disclaimers above the links are sufficient to differentiate between these ads and normal search results, but critics argue it’s ethically flawed and could mislead users.

It seems reasonable to expect that someone who is casually perusing Google for Kamala-related information would be misled by the deceptive nature of these ads, so long as they do not click through to the actual article being promoted.

If you click through to the actual Guardian article, you can clearly see the discrepancy between the ad headline and the actual headline, where the actual headline reads “Biggest US abortion rights groups back Kamala Harris as effective messenger” versus the ad headline that reads “VP Harris Fights Abortion Bans - Harris Defends Repro Freedom”.

An example where the AP article headline was changed to be more supportive of Harris

In another example, an AP report had its headline changed from “Harris freshens up her message on economy as Trump and Republicans go after her on inflation” to “Building Up The Middle Class - Lower Costs And Higher Wages”.

Allsides also noted how the sponsored article layout is nearly identical to the layout for normal articles that come up in the search results, making it difficult to distinguish between the two forms of search results.

According to their report, these ads include articles from other news outlets as well. The ads reportedly featured articles from sites Allsides rates as “left leaning”, such as Guardian, AP, PBS and CNN. In some cases, articles from Center-rated outlets like Reuters were also included.

Kamala Harris’ campaign spent $750,000 on text-based Google search result ads in August, on news outlet ads and campaign website ads, according to Google Ads Transparency Center data.

Allsides searched to see if the Trump campaign had done the same but found no examples of any Trump campaign ads that altered headlines or preview text.