
Google bans ZeroHedge and The Federalist from its ad platform - throwawaysea
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/16/google-bans-zerohedge-and-the-federalist-from-its-ad-platform.html
======
motohagiography
Reading into the details, the rationale was because Zerohedge allegedly failed
to manage their comment section to Google's standards for what other companies
do. In a parliamentary system, if you want to know what a government is doing,
you listen to the opposition. They are almost always a bunch of clowns
slinging mud, but when it sticks, they are miles ahead of the courtiers who
populate the press gallery and newsrooms. ZH is one of the fastest news
reaction sites on the web, with no pretense of objectivity other than as a
reliable opposition party to the sanctimonious tone that has come to
characterize the recent mainstream.

I haven't seen that comment section in years, but it was so terrible it looked
like people trying to plant things in it to discredit the site. ZH itself has
always been farcically provocative, and at least %90 useless, but when they
get it right, they really get it right. They are also to financial literacy
for younger generations what punk was to music. This reflects more on Google
(and previously, Twitter) and whoever else piles on than it does on ZH.

~~~
throwablePie
I read ZH regularly for the nuggets of truth found nowhere else. They have
changed a lot over the years. And, not for the better.

The comment section used to be an equal opportunity Fight Club with
omnidirectional contempt for mainstream orthodoxy regardless of source. The
U.S., Chinese, and occasionally the Russian governments met with distrust and
ridicule. So balanced was ZH that ZH (and HN) used to be available in China
without a VPN. But now both ZH and HN are blocked there.

But, over the past two years or so, ZH content has become much more partisan
and white nationalist; and the comment section has morphed from Fight Club
into Racist and Anti-Semitic Sewer nonpareil.

The racism free-for-all in the comment section could be laid at the feet of
non-moderation if ZH's comments section were indeed a free-fire zone. But ZH
manually approves all commenter accounts and it consistently violates its
_stated policy on racism_ by refusing to remove blatantly racist comments or
commenters.

> Racism, to include any religious affiliation, will not be tolerated in ANY
> FORM on this site, including the disparagment of people in the comments
> section.

> To report any form of discrimination, please right click on the comment
> number, copy the link to the comment, and send the comment link to abuse
> [at] zerohedge.com.

> Any user found to be discriminating against ANY race, religion, or
> affiliation, will be banned immediately, and have their comments removed
> from the system. [https://www.zerohedge.com/help/notice-
> racism](https://www.zerohedge.com/help/notice-racism)

~~~
jevgeni
ZH follows the narrative of RT and Sputnik so close, it’s scary.

~~~
mD5pPxMcS6fVWKE
Exactly. It's so obvious.

~~~
alchemism
“Anonymous” journalism is a great way to feed disinformation into the West,
right and left fringes.

~~~
blaser-waffle
See also, QAnon, Steve Bannon, 4chan, etc.

~~~
alchemism
I run a diverse set of acquaintances. Whenever my far-left and far-right
friends suddenly share their (identical) opinions I take that as a sign of
something.

------
kypro
ZeroHedge isn't the best news source if you're looking for high quality, well
sourced reporting, but if you're looking for hot takes on breaking news,
ZeroHedge is a great site. As a trader, I use it quite a bit primarily because
they're not afraid to get things wrong and tend to have different (and even
controversial) takes on current events.

The stance Twitter, and now Google have taken against ZeroHedge I suspect will
come to define how tech companies will treat the media (and the public) in the
years to come. It's become very easy for companies to convince the public that
they're taking these actions for the public's own good, especially when the
main stream media are more than willing to paint these stories in a positive
light to help bury any competition.

Who knows, perhaps these trillion dollar companies will curate the news in our
interest. Perhaps it's true that we can't be trusted to decide fact from
fiction. Perhaps we need Twitter to restrict tweets and tell us when the
president of the US says something they don't agree with. More and more this
seems to be the narrative I'm hearing.

A decade ago I used to have so much hope that internet would be liberating for
humanity. That seems laughably naive today.

~~~
RhodesianHunter
> Perhaps it's true that we can't be trusted to decide fact from fiction.

A lot of us have seen friends and family lose their minds to the
conspiratorial "news" like Zero hedge, Fox, etc. I too thought the internet,
and all of humanity's knowledge at your fingertips, would be liberating.
Instead it has enabled the ignorant to believe their conspiracies over expert
opinions. I for one welcome these sort of moves. Zero Hedge has every right to
spread their nonsense and Google/Twitter have every right to refuse to support
it.

~~~
zaroth
I’m glad that you acknowledge that the move is obviously politically
motivated. I don’t think that dissenting voices should be silenced. The free
marketplace of ideas used to be an American ideal. Now it’s a fireable
offense, or in the case of businesses, a capital one.

Google had a monopoly on internet advertising. They should have no such right
to decide who uses their Ad platform based on political affiliation or
leanings.

There’s plenty enough blame to spread around both left and right for fake
news. See just most recently Fox doctoring photos of CHAZ versus many MSM
sites falsely misrepresenting a conciliatory Trump quote on Floyd and the
recent protests.

If ZH is committing libel they should be sued for it and held liable. Taking
away their basically sole source of income and blaming it on their comment
section is flimsy doublespeak in my opinion. There is a similar effort within
Google to try to demonetize Breitbart and other right-wing sites.

A higher claim to the truth is no justification at all for silencing dissent.
IMO this is just another step in a growing and dangerous trend of politicized
de-platforming which I find extremely worrisome.

~~~
RhodesianHunter
>The free marketplace of ideas used to be an American ideal.

At what point in American history could you expect to use someone else's
platform, regardless of your content, in the name of free speech?

That's right, never.

Freedom of speech is about government censorship and nothing else.

~~~
collyw
Telephone lines.

~~~
undersuit
Telephone line owners were forced into being a public utility in the US.

------
refurb
I love Zerohedge, but let me explain why before you condemn me.

What I like about Zerohedge is that I actually hear about things before the
major media covers it. If I go to CNN, Foxnews or other networks, they all
cover the exact same thing. And they are also slow. It's not unusual for
Zerohedge to cover something half a day before the big boys.

Now, when I read Zerohedge, I put on my filters. They love to interpret news
in the worst possible and highly-conspiratorial light. Gold price drops? Must
be an international cabal led by Elon Musk or some other nonsense.

~~~
svaha1728
Yup. The first story they had on Covid-19 was January 2, and it was followed
by a series of alarmist headlines with great photos and videos every week.
That said, it was real. It took a while before it was headline news elsewhere.

~~~
jliptzin
It’s easy to be right about a pandemic when you’re alarmist about everything

~~~
travmatt
My favorite saying about zerohedge: “They’ve predicted 8 of the last 3
downturns.”

~~~
snowwrestler
Agreed. I'm astounded by all the comments in this thread that are like "ZH is
usually wrong and often crazy, but the few times they're right, they're really
right."

Reminds me of the joke, "60% of the time, it works every time."

Or the saying, "a stopped watch is still right twice a day."

------
seven4
As someone who has worked in finance and specifically a trading floor - i can
confirm that it is widely read by traders/market-makers/risk-takers in those
spaces.

It's not that those people are inherently bearish or expect the world and
financial markets to "go to zero"; but they understand that informed decisions
and fair market pricing arises from a matrix of ideas. Zero hedge takes an
extreme starting point for most of its commentary/coverage but as long as you
know that slant exists it can become a useful input into thinking about the
"bear scenario" or the "tail scenario". Knowing that it has reached a critical
mass and that other traders read it - it becomes a harder to ignore point of
information.

~~~
koheripbal
There is content on ZeroHedge that you just cannot find anywhere else.

In early January, ZH was publishing multiple articles a day on Covid-19 with
details that neither the WHO, nor Chinese media, nor mainstream media were
reporting. Novel economic indicators showing the virus impact / reports from
crematoriums in Wuhan / reports from Chinese dissidents ...and all while
HackerNews and Reddit was filtering the stories, telling everyone it was just
the flu, and that masks don't work.

Even today, there are topics being discussed that aren't getting much
attention anywhere else. Topics that critically inform some of the investment
decisions we make managing our portfolio.

There's a lot of garbage on ZH, sure, so you need a mature filter, but maybe
adults should be able to filter, right?

Maybe if you can't read stuff you don't agree with without being offended...
maybe we should have a special protected internet for kids?

~~~
timmytokyo
ZH boosters in these comments keep saying variants of this: "You have to have
a good BS filter to find the good stuff on ZH, but it's there!" Sure, if you
look backwards and cherry-pick only the accurate stuff while ignoring
everything they got horribly wrong, then yeah, the site's going to look good.
But that's true of any bullshit-peddler. In fact, that's the very essence of
what a bullshit-peddler does: throw bullshit at the wall, knowing that some of
it will stick, and gullible people will forget about all the stuff that didn't
stick.

If you really want to prove the site's credibility, then perform some of this
vaunted BS filtering in real time. Give us some examples of accurate
predictions ZH is making today that can't be found on any mainstream media
site, and let us evaluate their conformance with reality 3 or 4 months from
now.

~~~
koheripbal
No one is trying to demonstrate the sites "credibility". The point is to get
the unfiltered feed of news. ZH gets news from various sources - many are
totally unsubstantiated and have varying degrees of evidence.

This isn't a "reputable news" source. It is a RAW feed.

You need to be an adult to understand and read it and disregard the BS.

~~~
timmytokyo
So take my challenge. Give me an example of your BS filter in action.

------
olivermarks
I look at ZeroHedge at least a couple of times a day. I typically look at the
FT and then ZH when I get up in the morning, along with various other
financial sites. I never look at the ZH comments but I do think it an outrage
Google having the power to crack down on free speech and that anti trust
action and Section 230 review is long overdue. We are at a dangerous tipping
point where free speech is being cancelled, other super wealthy thanks to
section 230 firms (ie Twitter) have the temerity to editorialize and 'fact
check' (ie provide a 'correct' opinion on) posts of users they don't like.
BigTech has greatly overstepped the mark and I look forward to them being
reigned in.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
The incredibly irony here is that Google is crucifying ZeroHedge for content
_its users post_ , whilst Google disclaims any responsibility for bad behavior
on their platforms by using Section 230 as a shield: "We aren't responsible
for what our users post."

The fact that Google will both exploit Section 230 while attacking other sites
which expect the same immunity is absolutely golden, and a clear demonstration
of why it needs to be stripped of the privilege.

~~~
olivermarks
The irony certainly isn't lost on me - I find it enraging. I'm also annoyed by
@NBC_VC being framed as a self titled Orwellian 'news' 'verification' outfit
when they are clearly highly partisan and intent on closing down anyone they
don't agree with. I pay little attention to NBC or MSFTNBC but this is making
me actively dislike them

------
pram
Practically all traders read Zerohedge. It's larded with fringe shit for sure,
but it's an invaluable source of information if you're involved in any kind of
active trading. First place I heard about COVID was ZH.

~~~
koheripbal
Same. ZH was screaming about it while HN and Reddit were telling everyone that
it's just the flu and that masks don't work.

------
jdhn
I haven't read Zerohedge since 2011/2012, but at the same time this is kind of
worrisome. I really don't like the idea of a corporation deciding that news is
"bad", and therefore should be punished.

~~~
lightgreen
It’s not Google’s money, it’s advertisers money. Advertisers do not want to
pay for their ads on the websites with unacceptable content and trust Google
to do the moderation. Because the advertisement may even have a negative
effect for them when published on certain websites.

There are advertising networks (like those used on porn sites for an extreme
example) which have weaker rules, but the websites get smaller profits.

~~~
zaroth
Google is banning even advertisers which _want_ to be on ZeroHedge from using
their [dominant] platform to place those ads.

I’m not sure if you’re suggesting that Google’s platform doesn’t provide
advertisers the ability to mark specific domains which they do not want their
ads to be shown on?

I believe this feature is readily available under the Placements > Exclusions
page.

~~~
lightgreen
I guess advertisers do not want to manually maintain thousands of exclusion
domains.

If an advertiser did not explicitly excluded a certain domain, it doesn’t mean
an advertiser wants to place ads on that domain.

Sorry for using this analogy again, if Google banned some porn site, but an
advertiser did not add that porn site to the exclusion list, likely it still
means that advertiser agrees with Google moderation and don’t want to be
advertised on that porn site.

Google ads has a policy for ads and for hosters (which prohibits hatred, for
example), both advertisers and hosters agreed with it when they joined the
Google’s service.

One might disagree with the fact that such policy exists in Google, but that’s
topic for another discussion.

~~~
koheripbal
Seems like Google could just maintain a list for advertisers then.

I think it's naive to think that they are purely doing this to protect
Advertisers' convenience.

~~~
lightgreen
> Seems like Google could just maintain a list for advertisers then.

Maybe it could. I believe the market of advertising on marginal websites is
small, and it's not worth the trouble for Google to try to work on that
market: the number of users of these websites is small, and the number of
advertisers wanting to advertise on questionable websites is also small.

> I think it's naive to think that they are purely doing this to protect
> Advertisers' convenience.

It's not just convenience. When advertisers are unhappy, Google loses a lot of
money, because ads make the most of Google revenue.

If you have reasons to believe otherwise, please explain.

~~~
zaroth
According to SimilarWeb (reliable numbers? I'm not sure) ZH is ranked #300 in
News & Media as has "Total Visits" of 36 million, compared to for example
Bloomberg.com which is ranked 85th and has "Total Visits" of 82 million.

~~~
lightgreen
If Google created a separate list for questionable websites and allowed
advertisers to opt-in that list, my back of the envelope calculations are:

* all these websites account for at most 1% of Google Ads network reach by the number of page views

* since these websites are to be opt-in, the advertisers' competition will be much lower, probably 1/10 of the usual click price

* since the number of advertisers will be low, and only marginal advertisers would opt-in the marginal website list, the relevance of ads (and thus the probability of a click) will be also much much lower, probably 1/10 of the usual click rate

So by banning all marginal websites Google loses only 0.01% of revenue from
ads network. If my back of the envelope calculations is at least order of
magnitude correct, this does look like a very little price to pay for relief
from a headache associated with working with questionable websites.

------
forgingahead
Lots of top comments talking about ZeroHedge, but what about the Federalist?
Other than being slandered as "white nationalist" by the usual suspects in the
corporate media, why is their comment section considered more representative
of the site/owners than any others on the internet? _Youtube_ included?

This is a very dangerous step, but a consistent one in how the big monopoly
players of the modern web have been behaving. We should all prepare and push
for more decentralised alternatives wherever possible.

------
pochamago
It strikes me as awfully hypocritical for the owners of YouTube to condemn
someone for their comments section.

~~~
082349872349872
A few years ago I went on a non-anglophone[1] YouTube kick; my anecdote is
that the comments sections were generally less toxic.

[1] YouTube's filter bubble seems to lag a few days to a week on searches, so
moving it around takes patience, but is possible.

------
DeonPenny
I think things like this very obviously points to a problem with these
monopolistic internet utilities. The push out competition, then get
protections under article 230, and are policing speech on their platform. I
think they obviously have to pick 2.

You can't be the only game in town, be unsueable, and police speech, thats far
to much power for a un-electected corporation with clear bias

~~~
chockablock
> [Google is] policing speech on their platform

Howso? Zerohedge and Federalist publish their content on their own websites.
Should Google be forced to serve ads to their readers and cut them checks
every month? (I would say no). Is anyone stopping these publishers from
cutting their own deals with advertisers? (I think the answer is no).

~~~
lliamander
A policy like that may be fine in and of itself but I think a number of
factors make the action suspect:

* does Google have a monopoly in the online advertising space? Is their content policy only feasible because of that monopoly power?

* does Google apply that policy fairly across all of it's customers, or is there selective enforcement with a political bias?

* does Google hold it's own content platforms (like YouTube) to the same standard?

------
alexpetralia
Here is the actual Zerohedge response:

[https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/google-demonetizes-zero-
he...](https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/google-demonetizes-zero-hedge)

> _The reason presented to us for this decision is far more mundane than what
> has been disclosed by NBC: we are currently appealing it, and expect to
> remedy it.

That said, we were surprised by the framing of the suspension by the NBC
article, which disturbingly appears to be another attempt at activist
targeting of inconvenient media outlets, especially since the core argument
presented by the NBC employee is different than what Google actually has said.
In fact, half the NBC article just happens to be dead wrong._

------
BrandonMarc
Sounds like bullying to me.

Giant entrenched mainstream entity teams up with nonprofit to financially take
out a competitor. For the purpose of removing diversity from public discourse.

Doesn't sound so high minded when you put it that way.

------
thanatropism
Zero Hedge is not exactly user-submitted, but it's not heavily editorialized
either. It doesn't have a clear line, it's a thousand voices -- many
republished from personal blogs, etc.

I never expected it to become the litmus test on where we stand on freedom of
expression.

------
elektor
For context, ZeroHedge [1] has an estimated 36 million monthly visits. The
Federalist has 7 million.

They could probably run off donations with that sort of traffic. They have a
blogpost on this event and they end it with a donation link so it'd be
interesting to see if this pushes them to be self-sufficient.

[1][https://www.similarweb.com/website/zerohedge.com](https://www.similarweb.com/website/zerohedge.com)

~~~
cmdshiftf4
>They could probably run off donations with that sort of traffic

If they pivot to donations, I'll give it a fortnight before major payment
processors such as Paypal deplatform them also.

~~~
elektor
They are currently using a service calling PayoLee:

[https://www.payolee.com/checkout/5ed7f0febebae](https://www.payolee.com/checkout/5ed7f0febebae)

------
sukilot
This CNBC article was debunked with much evidence:
[https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/google-demonetizes-zero-
he...](https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/google-demonetizes-zero-hedge)

~~~
0xy
The original lie came from NBC. They made up a false quote from Google's comms
team to fit their narrative -- presumably to go after a news competitor.

------
AaronFriel
It only took a few clicks to get from a zerohedge article to learning about
how to join the fight in the coming "race war", so I don't think I feel too
bad for them.

I'm not at all being hyperbolic, but it seems not at all dissimilar from
4chan's comment sections.

~~~
koheripbal
No one is arguing that there isn't garbage content on ZH.

The point is that there is also very valuable content on ZH, if you are
willing to sift through the garbage.

They were easily a fill MONTH ahead of the curve on Covid-19.

~~~
AaronFriel
I don't think they were, do you have any evidence for that assertion?

Reuters wire service reported an outbreak of an unknown pneumonia causing
disease in Wuhan in December of 2019:
[https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/31/reuters-america-chinese-
offi...](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/31/reuters-america-chinese-officials-
investigate-cause-of-pneumonia-outbreak-in-wuhan.html)

So did AFP, which resulted in sites like Yahoo covering it.

The only two articles on Zero Hedge to reference pneumonia between Nov 1 2019
and Jan 1 2020 are a link about two people caught the plague (which was never
eradicated) in Beijing (not Wuhan): [https://www.zerohedge.com/health/fears-
pneumonic-plague-outb...](https://www.zerohedge.com/health/fears-pneumonic-
plague-outbreak-after-2-diagnosed-china-hospital-lockdown)

And an unrelated article about superbugs, antibiotic resistant bacteria.

------
blisterpeanuts
I never read ZeroHedge, and I have the Federalist bookmarked but never go
there.

Now, I'm going to start reading both, out of intense curiosity, because of
both Google's questionable actions and the interesting discussion here on HN.

The Streisand effect is still a thing.

------
jb775
I can't wait until all this Silicon Valley censorship virtue signaling comes
back to bite them in the ass.

My prediction is it will come in the form of expedited monopolistic practice
inquiries and significantly harsher penalties.

~~~
deepakhj
Even if they were split apart that still won’t block their ad unit from
dropping Zerohedge.

~~~
jb775
How would you know? It would likely be under different leadership with
different decision makers. And they would have to worry about a viable
competitor that could steal away customers that get upset by blatant
censorship in America.

------
s1artibartfast
Somewhat ironically, the CNBC article is not accurate and ZeroHedge has
different take[1]. Also, there seems to be no shortage of adds on the page.

[https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/google-demonetizes-zero-
he...](https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/google-demonetizes-zero-hedge)

------
im3w1l
The American electoral system leads to a two-party system, it's not a written
down rule, but it's an emergent feature.

So it seems that the internet economy leads to One Opinion. The side who
manages to get sufficiently many companies on board can use deplatforming to
strong the rest of em, and through the companies, every person.

~~~
082349872349872
"American electoral system" was properly qualified. "Ad-supported internet
economy" was missing a qualifier.

~~~
im3w1l
No it's not just the ad-supported parts. App stores, patreon and paypal are
cutting people off even though it's based on taking a percentage rather than
ads.

~~~
082349872349872
Sorry, being from the pre-Canter & Siegel days, and not being exposed to any
of those funding sources in my surfing now, I missed them. How does "directly-
financed internet economy" sound?

------
duxup
If Google banned ZeroHedge for it's own content and not its comments ... would
that be different?

While I'm willing to 'forgive' or not associate a site with it's comments to
some extent, I do think that if the comments are largely of a particular
type... at some point if the site isn't moderating them I feel like they are
ok with them to some extent. And it sounds like ZH has a great deal of control
over those comments / who comments / isn't just leaving them to their own
devices.

I'm asking less about ZH itself and more along the lines of "Can you hold a
site to some level of responsibility (even if not legally, maybe just morally)
for the content they choose to host?"

------
wslack
This is not the first time Google has done this, for what its worth - simply
the first time there's been widespread attention on it.

------
reilly3000
ZH has a very wealthy audience. They can do just fine without AdX revenue with
contributions and membership, and can probably juice this Google slap pretty
hard.

------
tmaly
ZH is just loaded with depressing news. The comments section is mostly
reserved for tinfoil hats.

I think Google should tread lightly here because they are a monopoly in
search. This would not help their case at all if the government decides to
come after them.

------
deepakhj
Sounds like nbc was wrong.

[https://twitter.com/google_comms/status/1272997425821540352?...](https://twitter.com/google_comms/status/1272997425821540352?s=21)

[https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200616/14390744730/no-
go...](https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200616/14390744730/no-google-didnt-
demonetize-federalist.shtml)

------
dang
Also
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23542864](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23542864)

------
IdontRememberIt
You search for Pampers on a website. You go on ZeroHedge and you get Diaper
advertising.

Google does not provide __anymore __Google Ads product which targets the
actual page content (Except on search result pages).

ZH, surely, has something to fix.

But Google AdSense also (I am not specifically speaking about this case, but
on the fact that the user is tracked and Google AdSense carries his past
search wherever he goes).

------
throwawaysea
In yet another sign of the big tech platforms having too much power, Google
has chosen to demonetize ZeroHedge and The Federalist. Twitter recently
reinstated ZeroHedge and admitted that its action to suspend ZeroHedge in
January 2020 was a mistake.

Per this article, the reason The Federalist was demonetized was because "The
Federalist published an article claiming the media had been lying about
looting and violence during the protests". Personally I think this is a
completely valid topic to write an article about. I've seen local politicians
gaslight constituents by claiming "white supremacists" were engaging in
rioting and looting when videos undeniably showed numerous non-whites
participating, and often comprising the majority of the looters in some
cities.

Regardless of where you stand on this topic, shouldn't this kind of discussion
be totally valid to hold? Are people not allowed to criticize the BLM movement
or the media or politicians unless it aligns with a progressive worldview?
Should Google be in the business of responding to activist pressure at all,
instead of just remaining a neutral carrier of information?

~~~
caseysoftware
According to Google, The Federalist was going to be demonetized (hadn't been
yet) over _comments_ not even an article.

------
jl2718
Zerohedge hasn’t been popular since the last financial crisis. Barbara
Streisand effect incoming...

------
da-x
Back a year and a half ago when Tesla short sellers were thriving on twitter,
it often happened that links to ZeroHedge started a negative newscycle
regarding various rumors. I wonder if the operators of ZeroHedge are part of
this short-sellers community.

~~~
drtillberg
Only the operators know for sure, but the site is so extremely contrarian one
cannot always read a negative ZH headline and infer an intent that traders
sell, or a positive headline and infer an intent that traders buy. Often the
intent seems to be just the opposite, i.e., sentiment is awful, trade
accordingly.

------
hedora
Never heard of ZeroHedge, but skimming it, it looks... less bad than most
right wing sites?

Any idea what articles they were banned over? Th first current one that has
something to do with the protests: “No we’re not all together” is on page 2:

[https://www.zerohedge.com/political/no-were-not-all-
together](https://www.zerohedge.com/political/no-were-not-all-together)

The premise is that there’s one set of COVID rules for the rich and the
protesters, and another set for religious groups and “normal” people.

The article’s tone is a bit offensive (and outside HN decorum), but it’s
reasonably well-researched, and not obviously incorrect.

~~~
perl4ever
"there’s one set of COVID rules for the rich and the protesters, and another
set for religious groups and “normal” people"

I feel like comparing the anti-lockdown protests with BLM is a talking point
that was distributed from _some_ central source, because all of a sudden a
whole bunch of people popped up and started hammering away at it, including on
HN. It raises all sorts of questions, none of which are answered by yet
another article pretending it's a compelling original thought people need to
be informed of.

I personally am _not_ 100% sure it's Russian propaganda, but it's blatantly
someone's manipulative party line, and it makes a paranoid person wonder what
influence the source has with any of the protesters, right or left.

~~~
hedora
I see your point (and don’t disagree that BLM isn’t the same as anti-lockdown
protesting), but the article cites egregious examples on both sides. One
example is rich folk flying around the world to second houses because they’re
annoyed with their spouses. Another example involved people being banned from
small religious ceremonies (like funerals, probably, though I only skimmed
it), and then not being able to protest about losing their right to religious
assembly.

Contrast this to Fox News, which hasn’t been deplatformed, but falsified
photographic evidence against the CHAZ BLM people, and then ran headline
stories about events that didn’t happen.

Again, I’m not seeing why ZeroHedge got the ban hammer when most right wing
sites are much, much worse.

~~~
tathougies
[https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/cbs-news-italian-
hospital/](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/cbs-news-italian-hospital/)

Are we going to now deplatform every news outlet that publishes false images?
Let's start there.

But seriously, this is ridiculous. News media makes mistakes

------
coffeemug
Note: this report was either a mistake or a "stylized fact". Google never did
this. See their comms for details:
[https://twitter.com/Google_Comms/status/1272997425821540352](https://twitter.com/Google_Comms/status/1272997425821540352)

~~~
mc32
Looks like that says they didn’t demonetize the federalist after the latter
“agreed to work with goog to address their comments section “. It says nothing
about ZH...

~~~
Noos
they didn't "work with"-the federalist removed the ability to comment it looks
like.

------
huonpine
Can ZH stop google from displaying or indexing any of their content?

------
mesozoic
These sites must be getting really good now if they're attacking them this
directly. Thanks for the heads up on sites to keep checking out.

------
alkibiades
have they seen youtube comments?

------
LargoLasskhyfv
Pornhub is calling...

------
Jimmc414
Thanks for destroying comments on the internet, Google.

------
objektif
I have to say ZH comment section is the most toxic content I have seen on the
internet.

~~~
downerending
You must be new here. Head over to 4chan (and 8chan?).

~~~
wyclif
Or...YouTube. Another reason why this deplatforming reeks of hypocrisy.

------
mlindner
The Federalist?? That's a legitimate news site with good articles. What the
heck are you doing Google.

Sure ban ZeroHedge, they're crazy, but The Federalist is a mainstream right-
leaning site.

~~~
ewzimm
According to The Federalist, it was actually NBC that got them defunded to
remove competition.

[https://thefederalist.com/2020/06/16/federalist-co-
founder-s...](https://thefederalist.com/2020/06/16/federalist-co-founder-sean-
davis-responds-to-nbc-google-deplatforming-attempt/)

~~~
tedunangst
If The Federalist folds, those readers are expected to go to NBC?

~~~
ewzimm
Most probably already get some news from NBC, but I think the implication is
that some journalists are also activists and don’t consider attempts to
demonetize other journalists to be unethical if their views don’t align.

Of course, now they’ve drawn more attention to them instead.

------
troughway
The ZH take - [https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/google-demonetizes-zero-
he...](https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/google-demonetizes-zero-hedge)

------
tibbydudeza
So I had a look and ZH esp the comment section is a racist cesspool for the
boogaloo club ... moderate or just turn it off.

~~~
koheripbal
No one even looks at the comments - they are collapsed by default.

------
lightgreen
Looks like it is a fake news
[https://twitter.com/Google_Comms/status/1272997425821540352](https://twitter.com/Google_Comms/status/1272997425821540352)

~~~
DuskStar
Oh, so they just pressured a news site into removing comments with the threat
of demonitization - that's _so_ much better.

~~~
gniv
> Oh, so they just pressured a news site into removing comments with the
> threat of demonization - that's so much better.

Just wanted to save your freudian slip.

~~~
DuskStar
Oh, wow - that's a fun one!

------
throwawaysea
Some people have pointed out that The Federalist was not demonetized after
all, since they caved into Google’s demands to delete their comment section.
But if The Federalist can be held responsible for its comment section then why
should Google themselves enjoy Section 230 protection from their user’s
contributions? I know there’s probably a legal distinction since Google is
private but on principle this is clearly unacceptable.

~~~
qtplatypus
Because it would be a violation of the principles of freedom to force people
to provide goods and services to people that they don't wish to (apart from
protected classes which the Federalist is).

------
neil_s
I'm surprised by all the negative top-level comments. I wasn't familiar with
ZeroHedge before, but I just looked it up on Snopes.com and there are numerous
results where ZH articles were marked false or mostly false. I followed a few
links and didn't find any retractions. Clearly, this is a site that is OK
publishing demonstrably false news for the eyeballs and ad dollars. An
advertising platform is well within its rights to stop showing their ads on
this website, especially since most major corporates would not want their
brand associated with funding such false news. Admittedly, as a
moderate/progressive, I'm biased against extreme-right hate-peddling.

~~~
greendestiny_re
>I just looked it up on Snopes.com and there are numerous results where ZH
articles were marked false or mostly false

Have you actually _read_ any of those Snopes articles? Snopes is notorious for
putting a big, red X and "FALSE" on the very top of its articles but the
article body itself concedes that the claim being debunked is actually true.
It does that because it knows from its metrics most visitors spend a couple
seconds on the articles, scan the page for the rating and move on.

Take this Snopes article debunking ZeroHedge's claim that water conservation
measures in California will make it so residents won't be able to shower and
do laundry on the same day [1].

The article admits that there are water conservation measures the two bills
put into place, though they aren't slated to come into effect until 2022,
meaning the only part of ZH's claim that is false is the word "now". The final
paragraph is just glorious and actually tries to downplay the restrictions,
the same one the headline portrayed as "mostly false".

>Given that the average shower uses about 17.2 gallons of water, while most
high-efficiency clothes washers use only 15 to 30 gallons of water per load,
most California residents (depending upon their personal habits and the
efficiency of their home appliances and water fixtures) shouldn’t find it too
difficult to accommodate a daily shower and a daily laundry load while staying
within the 55 gallons per person per day guideline. But either way, nothing in
either legislative bill specifically levies fines against customers who do
laundry and shower on the same day.

Its article research is most often solid and Snopes articles are worth a read
but the ratings and headlines are, ironically, mostly false.

1 - [https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/california-laundry-and-
sho...](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/california-laundry-and-shower/)

------
mtgp1000
At this point I'd rather read ZH with scrutiny than watch anything on cable
news, or anything "reputable" online.

At least ZH doesn't lie to you. The facts are presented, the narrative is
painted, but in a manner that is open to questioning. It's pure speculation,
and that's ok, because that's how and where investigations start. By the time
reputable spots pick it up it's usually months old.

~~~
jevgeni
ZH has become a propaganda outlet. I’m not sure how you can come to the
conclusion of “it doesn’t lie to you”.

If you don’t know who the owner of the news outlet is and you are not actively
paying for your news, you probably shouldn’t trust it.

~~~
mtgp1000
The fact that there is propaganda on ZH doesn't mean there isn't also factual
information on there. That's the scrutiny I'm talking about. You and Google
both are throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

~~~
082349872349872
I would not be surprised if it turns out the ratio of factual information to
false information is higher in propaganda outlets than in ad-sponsored
outlets.

(ad-sponsored media measure what ratio of advertising to editorial maximizes
their profit. Propagandists do the same; if you want eyeballs on the
propaganda, you need plenty of straight content in between)

Linebarger, "Psychological Warfare" (1948)

[http://www.gutenberg.org/files/48612/48612-h/48612-h.htm](http://www.gutenberg.org/files/48612/48612-h/48612-h.htm)

"The intelligence that goes into the making of propaganda must compete for
attention with the home newspaper of the enemy. It must therefore be up-to-
date, well put, authentic. ... Even if exaggerations or nonsense appear in the
commercial press of his own country, the propagandist must realize that he is
Honorary G-2 to the enemy—a G-2 whose function consists of transmitting news
the ultimate effect of which should be bad but which should go forth with each
separate item newsworthy and palatable. ... The Japanese who obediently hated
the Americans when it was their duty to do so nevertheless could not help
looking at maps that showed where the Americans actually were. Nazis who
despised us and everything we stood for nevertheless studied the photographs
of our new light bombers. The appeal of credible fact is universal; propaganda
does not consist of doctoring the fact with moralistic blather, but of
selecting that fact which is correct, interesting, and bad for the enemy to
know."

Note that in 2020, double-checking credible fact has become easier than it was
in 1950.

