Watching the weather network, with the ads: the fires in Turkey brought to you by Mitsubishi’s new crossover SUV, the Outlander. Literally brought to you by.
It’s exactly like an ad for guns showing right after news of a school shooting. See the problem?
How can they, the people behind the weather network, can be so fucking clueless? Why would they agree to advertise the very product that causes the disasters they cover?
Because the disasters depend on those products, and their website depends on disasters. Disasters are exciting. People click on disasters. People stay on disasters. And so the website gets more money for the ads.
Somewhere along the line, the horse got put before the cart: it’s not that ads enable websites anymore; now, websites enable ads.
And, ho-hum, in the U.S., money trumps morality. So I waste my time suggesting that ads for harmful products should be banned. Seriously. And fossil-fueled cars, and guns, are so much worse than, say, cigarettes—given that the harm done goes waaaaaaay beyond that to the person who voluntarily chooses to use said products.
