Google reportedly took five days to review misleading ads from an organization that echoes the president’s crock about voting by mail, and then declined to take them down essentially because of a technicality.
According to a Washington Post report this week, the ads aimed to discourage voters from using the U.S. Postal Service, which President Donald Trump has frequently denounced in a self-professed attempt to rig the election, to deliver their ballots. The report contends that these ads contained misleading information about the difference between absentee ballots and mail-in voting, and popped up for searches of mail-in voting in several key battleground states, including Florida, Michigan, Iowa, Arizona, Texas and Georgia, according to University of Washington researchers.
One ad purportedly claimed that most voters “think mail-in voting and absentee voting are the same.” But, it warned, “Think again! There are different safeguards for each.”
Most states use the terms mail-in ballots and absentee ballots interchangeably, and they’re all subject to the same verification process. In short, absentee and mail-in voting have essentially become synonymous, to the point that the National Conference of State Legislatures, a bipartisan public officials’ association, has adopted the term “absentee/mailed ballots” to refer to all ballots mailed out to voters, as the Post notes.
So, in general, they mean the same thing, but there is technically an exception. Some states allow absentee ballots to be mailed in and delivered in-person to polling locations, meaning that while all mail-in ballots are still absentee ballots, not all absentee ballots are necessarily mailed in. Get it? And it’s through this slimy little distinction that Protect My Vote, the little-known group who sponsored the ads, was able to skirt the line of Google’s policies.
G/O Media may get a commission
A source with Google disputed the Post’s claim that these ads popped up in several states, and told Gizmodo on Saturday that they only appeared in Iowa, one of the states that allow voters to submit their absentee ballots in person. That makes the ad’s claim that there’s a difference between mail-in voting and absentee voting technically true, even if all the information pointed to on its website once the user clicks the ad is significantly more misleading.
A prominent banner on Protect My Vote’s site reads “Think mail-in voting is problem free? Think again” followed by a quote about supposed voter fraud in the 2016 presidential election from Hans von Spakovsky, a former Federal Election Commission official and current manager at the Heritage Foundation, a right-leaning think tank. Back in 2018, a federal judge vehemently debunked Spakovsky’s voter fraud research when he took the stand as an expert witness, ruling that his claims were cherry-picked bullshit and not backed up by solid findings.
Searching for each state’s mail-in voting restrictions brings up more patented falsehoods. For example, Protect My Vote claims that Iowa requires a person’s ID and proof of residence for absentee voting but not for mail-in voting, and maintains that mail-in voting isn’t available at all in the state. Neither of those statements is true, and the very government website the page links to for additional information uses the terms mail-in voting and absentee voting interchangeably. I searched for my home state of Virginia and found identical results. According to Protect My Vote’s site, mail-in voting is unavailable in Virginia, which, if so, someone needs to let officials know because they let me register for it this week.
Facebook recently struck down similar ads from Protect My Vote on its platform, citing the organization’s use of “voter suppression tactics” in an interview with the Post. While Google has similar guidelines in place, it maintains that Protect My Vote’s ads on its platform differed from those on Facebook and their claims didn’t amount to misinformation for the reasons listed above.
“We have zero tolerance for ads that employ voter suppression tactics or undermine participation in elections. When we find those ads, we take them down,” a Google spokesperson said.
It’s one of those situations where it’s like, ok, I guess you’re technically right, but anyone with two brain cells to rub together can recognize that these kinds of misleading ads spell trouble. Because surely allowing disinformation campaigns about mail-in voting at a time when most people are too scared of getting sick to go to the polls won’t have any effect on the democratic process this November. Of course they’re harmless.
Targeted ads stalking you on your iPhone? Here's how to limit them
Apple has built its reputation on helping you protect your privacy, and that includes its own ad network.
Óscar Gutiérrez/CNET
Earlier this week, Facebook warned users and its business partners that changes in Apple's next version of iOS will impact on its Audience Network advertising platform. When iOS 14 is released this fall, iPhone ($699 at Apple) users will have to opt in to targeted advertising. It's not a stretch to assume that users aren't going to eagerly opt in and allow Facebook, or any advertiser for that matter, to track their internet usage when given a choice.
But what about limiting ad tracking on your iPhone right now, even before iOS 14 is available? It's possible, but it's only possible in Apple's own ad network.
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Below I'll walk you through how to limit ad tracking, what exactly that means, and offer some of my own anecdotal experience after testing it myself.
Ads in the App Store can get specific if you leave ad tracking on.
Jason Cipriani/CNET
The quick and easy answer: privacy. Ad tracking is a complicated topic, full of nuance and privacy implications as companies have figured out ways to track users' online activity across multiple websites and devices.
An easy way to see ad tracking in action is to search for a product on Google or Amazon, wait a few minutes, then open the Facebook app on your phone and start scrolling through your feed. Odds are, you're going to see ads for that product category. It's scary how fast advertisers are able to target your account, all because you searched for something on a totally unrelated website.
By limiting or opting out of ad tracking, you can prevent advertisers from following you around the internet.
Until iOS 14 makes its official debut this fall, any changes you make to ad tracking on your iPhone or iPad ($270 at Back Market) will only impact Apple's advertising network, which is used to show ads in the App Store, Apple News and the Stocks app.
Nobody wants to be tracked.
Jason Cipriani/CNET Limit ad tracking on your iPhone or iPad
To turn on the Limit Ad Tracking feature on your iPhone or iPad, open the Settings app and tap on Privacy then scroll to the bottom of the page and select Advertising. There you'll find the option to Limit Ad Tracking, which should be off by default. Slide the switch to the On position, then tap on the button labeled Reset Advertising Identifier.
By resetting your advertising ID, any information linked to you and your devices will be disassociated from you, meaning Apple won't continue to use that information to tailor the ads it shows to you. You won't lose out on any functionality by resetting the ID.
Effectively, you'll be starting with a clean advertising profile. Combine that with limiting ad tracking, and you should begin to see ads that don't appeal to you -- and that's exactly the point.
You can take it one step further by turning off location-based Apple ads by going to Settings > Privacy > Location Services > System Services and turning off Location-Based Apple Ads.
After making the change
Even though Apple's ad platform is limited to just a few apps, I've noticed a difference when scrolling through the App Store. Before resetting my ID and limiting ad tracking, I'd see ads for different apps, like a PDF editor, several days after searching for apps that let me digitally sign a PDF.
Now my ads are more generic, but still relevant. For example, instead of the ad highlighting an app like Adobe Fill & Sign, I see an ad for a scanner app.
I don't use the Apple News or Stocks app, so I can't speak to how much of an impact ad tracking has had on the experience inside either of those apps. But I'd assume it's similar to the App Store, with more generalized ads.
It's a small change, but one that will be even more dramatic once iOS 14 is released, likely in September.
If you want to take steps to limit ad tracking in your browser, we have a guide that walks you through doing just that. In addition to changes to ad tracking, Apple has also added a handful of privacy-focused features in iOS 14 that will help keep everything from your location to your photo library totally private. If you want to check out the new iOS 14 features, you can sign up for the public beta right now, but it's probably best you wait until it's officially released.
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