Duncan Campbell's Diary

| Wednesday, 16 April 2008 Source: The Guardian

Yesterday we noted that the Green Arrow Forum, the bloggers' website that supports the British National party, was running a rather surprising ad for singlemuslim.com, a leading marriage service for Muslims. It transpired that the ads were placed by Google, which offers a service of "contextually relevant ads"; the many references to Islam by BNP bloggers had attracted the ad. Closer inspection of the website shows that there are many other ads that might, on the face of it, seem puzzling. Yesterday's featured ad, for instance, was for InterracialRomance - "the number one interracial dating community on the net". It had presumably been drawn there by the Google AdSense programme, which would have spotted many blogs about "race mixing" and the like. More intriguing were ads for Hollywood lighting companies, which seemed odd at first until it became clear that they all provide searchlights - and Searchlight, the anti-fascist magazine, is a bete noire of the BNP, because it is constantly exposing the dodgy pasts of BNP candidates. Still, there was one ad that might well have found its natural home. "Emigrating to Canada?" it asks. Doubtless, if the Green Arrow bloggers just can't take it any more, the internet firm offering a speedy passage west will be doing a roaring trade.