Kamala Harris is reaching deep into her bag of tricks to win.
Her campaign has made dishonesty a core principle.
And Kamala Harris could be headed to court for this massive deception.
Kamala Harris’ campaign uses doctored headlines in Google search
Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign was caught in a sneaky scheme to trick users of Google search.
Her ads mimicked news stories from real outlets like Reuters, CBS News, and CNN that appeared in searches to look like legitimate articles from those sources.
Democrats whine about misinformation but this was a ploy to confuse content from her campaign as a real news story.
Kamala Harris is running Google ads use fake news headlines | Axios
The Harris campaign has been editing news headlines and descriptions within Google search ads that make it appear as if the Guardian, Reuters, CBS News and other major publishers are on her side, Axios has… pic.twitter.com/SKnolgVCg3
— Owen Gregorian (@OwenGregorian) August 14, 2024
A small disclaimer from her campaign was put at the top followed by a legitimate news outlet and then an article from her campaign.
One of the ads reads “Harris Will Lower Health Costs” with an NPR link and text that states “Kamala Harris will lower the cost of high-quality affordable health care.”
It’s made to appear that media outlets are organically publishing stories that have favorable information about her.
Google said this practice was legal under the rules of their advertising program.
Axios reported that many of the outlets had no idea they were being used in the campaign ads.
The media is in the tank for Kamala, so most of these outlets aren’t to complain their brand is being to help her.
But one local outlet took offense at being used to manipulate voters with misinformation.
Local North Dakota radio station considers suing Kamala Harris
Fargo, North Dakota, news station WDAY Radio was used in the Kamala campaign’s Google ads to make it appear that the station backed her.
WDAY is considering filing a lawsuit against the Kamala campaign.
Flag Family Media President Steve Hallstrom – who runs WDAY’s parent company – ripped Google in an interview with the Daily Caller.
“We feel insulted and violated by what was done here,” Hallstrom said.
Not only is it dishonest, it hurts the credibility of WDAY as a news station.
“You have a political campaign that used our news brand and our URL to effectively lie to people about the headline we wrote,” Hallstrom explained. “They lied to every single person that saw that ad. It’s misleading, it’s dishonest, and it hurts us as the company, our news brand. So as of today, we’re starting to make some calls here. We are considering all of our options here, including legal action.”
Kamala’s campaign ran three headlines with WDAY; “Harris Picks Tim Walz – 215,000 MN Families Win,” “Learn About VP Pick Tim Walz – Harris Picks Tim Walz,” and “Harris Picks Tim Walz – Tim Walz Tapped For VP.”
Users would be taken to a real article from WDAY if they clicked on the link but it had nothing to do with the headline or the text.
“We never wrote anything close to what is alleged here,” Hallstrom said. “They took two different unrelated stories that we did have on our website, sort of mashed them together, and then from there, they rewrote a few words to make it look like our news organization was cheering on the selection of Walz.”
Democrats complain about misinformation from Republicans as a tool to silence speech they don’t like and paint the target for Big Tech censorship.
It seems they’re perfectly fine with misinformation if it benefits them politically.
Stay tuned to Unmuzzled News for any updates to this ongoing story.
