Former US President Donald Trump campaigned in Pennsylvania, attacking the appearance of his rival Kamala Harris and threatening Google that it would pay the price and that it was illegal and interfering in his campaign.
“I’m a much better person than Kamala,” he told supporters at a rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. “I’m a much better person than Kamala.”
Trump referred to the recent Time magazine cover featuring Harris, saying: “Time magazine doesn’t publish a picture of her, they hire an amazing artist to draw her, and they took a lot of pictures that didn’t work, so they hired a professional artist.”
In this context, former US President Donald Trump said, “Google is a crooked and illegal machine” for interfering in the presidential elections, warning that “it will pay a heavy price for what it is doing.”
“Google is a crooked election interference machine,” Trump wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social. “It is completely illegal and you will pay a big price for what you are doing!”
Trump claimed that the search engine was “changing headlines” for use in ads for his rival Kamala Harris’ campaign. He cited a link to an article alleging that the Harris campaign was editing headlines and descriptions in paid Google ads.
“The regulations are complex and confusing, which gives political parties the confidence to push the envelope and take advantage of lax enforcement,” Karthik Ahuja, founder of marketing firm GrowthScribe, told The Independent.
“In theory, campaigners should get permission from content owners before publishing it, but Google doesn’t require advertisers to prove they have permission, and this loophole allows political parties to reuse content without explicit consent from the publisher,” he added.
A Google spokesperson said the edited ads did not violate its rules and insisted they were “easily distinguishable” because they were labeled as sponsored.
Last updated: August 18, 2024 – 10:06
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2024-08-19 21:42:28