Stop me if you’ve heard this one.
Believe it or not, Big Tech and the establishment media have colluded to help Democrats — all while feigning objectivity.
According to Axios, Vice President and 2024 Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris’ campaign has bought search ads on Google featuring deceptively edited headlines from establishment media outlets.
For instance, a Harris ad might include a story from CNN, NPR, The Guardian or another establishment propaganda outlet.
That ad, however, will feature a fake headline designed to paint Harris in the most flattering light possible.
The first question that leaps to mind, of course, is why bother rewriting anything? Do those outlets’ actual fawning headlines and stories not already paint Harris in a favorable light?
In any event, Google has justified the practice by noting that each search ad comes with a “sponsored” designation. Thus, readers should already know that the Harris campaign paid for the ad.
Normally, conservatives tend to err on the side of eschewing idiotic warning labels and instead trusting the public.
In this case, however, one finds at least two very sinister acts of deception.
Should this practice be banned?
First, the search ads feature links to actual articles by those establishment propaganda outlets. The Harris campaign simply changed the headlines and supporting text.
That might not offend the average voter as much as say, stolen valor. But it does seem awfully close to what old-fashioned people might call “lying.”
Second, the entire dishonest spectacle has called forth the usual objectivity theater from both Big Tech and the establishment media.
For instance, according to Axios, “Google believes its sponsored disclosures are enough to keep voters from being misled.”
Sponsored disclosures or otherwise, one chuckles at the notion that Google executives care about misleading voters. After all, among their many sins, those same people have recently admitted that search results pertaining to former President Donald Trump were “accidentally” suppressed.
Axios also noted that the media already finds itself “fighting assertions of bias.”
Assertions? My goodness. Even late-night establishment propagandist Stephen Colbert’s liberal audience laughed when he called CNN “objective.”
Still, against all evidence to the contrary, outlets like The Guardian maintain the pretense of conducting actual journalism.
“While we understand why an organization might wish to align itself with the Guardian’s trusted brand, we need to ensure it is being used appropriately and with our permission. We’ll be reaching out to Google for more information about this practice,” a Guardian spokesperson said according to Axios.
One wonders, of course, how anyone can tell the difference between the real headlines and those written by Harris’ campaign.
In any case, the dishonest practice should strike us as odious to the core. But it also should not surprise us.
After all, in light of everything that Big Tech and the establishment media have done since 2016 to create a “1984“-style alternate reality in the service of both Democrats and the deep state, the act of rewriting headlines and passing them off as real seems par for the course — tame, in fact, by their Maoist standards.
In short, anyone who trusts Google and the establishment media in 2024 has either chosen willful ignorance or embraced tyranny.
