Amazon and Nike among ads found on ‘Covid conspiracy sites’

Household brands may be unwittingly funding websites spreading misinformation

Dozens of the world’s biggest brands, including Nike, Amazon, Ted Baker and Asos, have been advertising on websites that spread Covid-19 misinformation and conspiracy theories, it has emerged. The companies are among household names whose ads appear to have helped fund websites that host false claims, for example that powerful people engineered the pandemic, or that vaccines caused thousands of deaths.

Analysis of nearly 60 sites, performed by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and shared with the Observer, found that ads were placed through the “opaque” digital advertising market, forecast to be worth more than $455bn (£387bn) this year.

Digital advertising is delivered through a complex networks of tech companies, including Google, that match online data about people with available advertising space and then sell access to web users as they browse.

Experts said the design of this digital advertising architecture means major brands may have been unwittingly funding Covid misinformation.

Dr Augustine Fou, an independent ad fraud researcher, said the system of bidding on ads means these sites get mixed in with more benign ones.

“Because they now have a source of funding, they can not only survive but also proliferate,” he said. “Because of the lack of transparency … the companies and organisations buying the ads could be unaware that their marketing is appearing on – and potentially funding – sources of misinformation.

Ads for Amazon were found on more than 30 sites that carried fake news ranging from Covid conspiracy theories involving Bill Gates to claims that mRNA vaccines are “toxic”.

An NHS diabetes website was promoted alongside articles by a wellknown anti-vaccine activist and the claim that you cannot catch a virus.

“We know the ad ecosystem is incredibly opaque,” said Raegan MacDonald from Mozilla, which makes the Firefox internet browser. “It’s almost like we’re not supposed to look under the hood. Because if you do, you find this mess.”

The bureau examined sites that host misinformation and also carry ads, using manual checking by researchers and automated systems that “crawl” sites to record what happens when someone visits them.

The pages were identified with help from the Global Disinformation Index, with ad analysis provided by Rocky Moss, the chief executive of ad quality platform Deepsee.io, and Braedon Vickers, who has built a search platform called Well-Known.

Many of the companies that arrange digital advertising are little known outside the industry, which is dominated by Google. Analysis found ads delivered by Google for almost 30 big brands, each appearing on two or more misinformation websites.

The most common were for Amazon Pharmacy, which accounted for more than 1% of 42,000 ads recorded by the “crawlers” and were found on more than 30 misinformation sites. Google said it took action against breaches of policies on misinformation, including cutting off publishers’ ability to make money from specific pages, or entire sites.

The next most-featured advertisers were computer manufacturer Lenovo and US bank Discover. Lenovo said: “Lenovo does not approve the placement of ads placed on Covid-19 misinformation websites and does not condone the content it appeared next to, and we’ll will work to review our protection systems.”

Ads for Nike, Honda, US pharmacy chain Walgreens and eBay were also among those recorded on misinformation-spreading sites. British fashion firms Ted Baker and Asos, and Sotheby’s appeared on multiple sites.

Xyla Health & Wellbeing, which runs the NHS diabetes prevention programme, said it had acted to stop its messages appearing on the sites.

A spokesperson for American Honda said: “We are working to determine how our advertising may have appeared on the websites in question. We would never support Covid misinformation or knowingly allow our advertising on such websites. Honda strongly encourages our associates to become fully vaccinated.”

A spokesperson for Ted Baker said: “We can confirm that we have worked with Google to resolve this issue and that our adverts will not appear on these specific sites in the future.”

Asos is understood to have added the misinformation sites to its banned list. The other companies declined to comment or did not respond.