Google has a policy to ban advertisements that appear in searches if they contain content that, according to a Google representative who spoke to Reuters, “states climate change is a hoax, the Earth’s climate is not warming, or that there is no clear scientific consensus on climate change, as well as claims that there is no evidence that carbon emissions or human activity contribute to climate change or global warming.” Each of these types of claims is damnably wrong, which, as far as justifications for banning speech go, is a pretty good one. According to the Reuters piece, pegged to the news of the recent United Nations “Conference of the Parties” in Egypt, also known as COP27, just banning this kind of ad is not solving the problem that Google is concerned with. That’s because the problem in question is that some words, some place on the internet, might mislead someone.

The article is titled “Gaming Google: Oil firms use search ads to greenwash, study says,” and it suggests that oil companies use ads that claim they are “net zero” or other marketing terms that sound climate-friendly and then pay to have those terms show up at the top of Google searches. Which is true, though your intellectual defenses should be up when a study is done by something called the “Center for Countering Digital Hate,” a nongovernmental organization that is a leading censorship justifier. “These findings that fossil fuel companies like BP, Exxonmobil, Chevron, Shell & Aramco are buying up search terms like ‘eco-friendly companies’ & ‘net zero’ should worry us all,” tweeted London Mayor Sadiq Khan.