Communication strongly influences attitudes on climate change. Within sponsored communication, high spend and high reach advertising dominates. In the advertising ecosystem we can distinguish actors with adversarial stances: organizations with contrarian or advocacy communication goals, who direct the advertisement delivery algorithm to launch ads in different destinations by specifying targets and campaign objectives. We present an observational (N=275,632) and a controlled (N=650) study which collectively indicate that the advertising delivery algorithm could itself be an actor, asserting statistically significant influence over advertisement destinations, characterized by U.S. state, gender type, or age range. This algorithmic behaviour may not entirely be understood by the advertising platform (and its creators). These findings have implications for climate communications and misinformation research, revealing that targeting intentions are not always fulfilled as requested and that delivery itself could be manipulated.

翻译：传播强烈影响人们对气候变化的看法。在付费传播中，高花费、高覆盖率的广告占据主导地位。在广告生态系统中，我们可以区分出持对抗立场的参与者：那些抱有反制或倡导性传播目标的组织，它们通过指定定向目标和活动目标，引导广告投放算法在不同目的地投放广告。我们开展了一项观察性研究（N=275,632）和一项对照研究（N=650），两者共同表明：广告投放算法本身可能就是一个行动者，它对广告目的地（以美国州、性别类型或年龄段划分）施加具有统计显著性的影响。这种算法行为可能并非广告平台（及其创建者）所能完全理解。这些发现对气候传播与虚假信息研究具有启示意义，揭示出定向意图并非总能按请求达成，且投放过程本身可能被操纵。