
Google AdSense Banned Web Page About 32yo Bill Because It Was About Sexual Abuse - lysp
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/ne5j3z/google-adsense-banned-a-random-web-page-about-a-32-year-old-bill-because-it-was-about-sexual-abuse
======
WalterGR
Google AdSense 'banned' web pages on my website - The Online Slang Dictionary
- that define terms related to software piracy. For example, "warez":
[http://onlineslangdictionary.com/meaning-definition-
of/warez](http://onlineslangdictionary.com/meaning-definition-of/warez)

They've also 'banned' all web pages on the site that are related to human
sexuality, despite the goal (mostly accomplished) of the site to have high-
quality 'non-pornographic' definitions for such terms.

There is no recourse - no way to appeal. You just bend over and comply, lest
they block your entire site from using AdSense. When that happens, again,
there is no way to appeal: your site is done.

~~~
nitwit005
An appeal process would be difficult. Websites change all the time, so there
is no practical way to sign off on something perminantly.

------
TangoTrotFox
I have 0 love for what Google is doing and turning into, but this article is
deeply flawed. Their focus is implicitly on the accuracy rate of Google's
actions, yet it makes no effort to statistically demonstrate this. What would
matter is not an anecdotal incident, but estimations of the error rate of
Google's algorithmic censorship/deranking/demonitization as compared to how
human's might perform. Humans regularly make dumb mistakes if not out of
misunderstanding then out of sloppiness. Are these algorithmic decisions more
accurate, on average, than we might expect of a collection of humans along the
lines of Amazon's Mechanical Turk? We can only speculate, but I'd be quite
surprised if they were not, but if so that refutes this article's entire
premise.

This is one of the biggest problems with advertising driven media. They love
anecdotal evidence because _we_ love anecdotal evidence which means the story
gets clicks and they get their ad bucks. But it entirely misses the point of
issues. For instance here, should the issue be the accuracy rate of Google's
behaviors or Google's behaviors themselves and their desired endgame? Their
accuracy, as a whole, is almost certainly going to be quite acceptable
relative to human accuracy. So consequently you end up targeting them in a
spot where they're extremely well 'defended.' By contrast, I think the world
Google is trying to shape is certainly not one many would particularly enjoy.
And the worst part here is that there is great potential for countless
longform consideration and analysis of such a world. But putting out an
anecdotal bit is far easier. It's just plain lazy.

------
onetimemanytime
Google makes more than enough money to hire people to oversee appeals, but
apparently that cuts into their earnings. At least short term...

A human being would see what this page was about in 10 seconds. Check a box
and click submit. Total time: less than a minute.

------
sandworm101
Dont blame the machine. Blame those who wish to apply censorship standards
meant for film/tv to the entire world. The internet cannot be made pg13. Dont
ask the robots to try.

~~~
nrb
Advertisers don’t want their ads displayed alongside “adult” content, this is
strictly a financial decision.

~~~
Nuzzerino
Which advertisers? Google has unfortunately become the trend-setter for one-
size-fits-some products, rubbing off on the rest of the industry. Monopolize
what you can and turn as much of it into passive income with the least effort
necessary.

------
Eridrus
I wonder how publishers would feel if they were charged for the cost of
appeals.

~~~
onetimemanytime
Is Google struggling that much to charge them, what $50 or $100 per appeal?
Shouldn't that be built in the system?

Not to mention accusation of bias..."they banned me to get the appeal fee."

~~~
nrb
The fee is a deterrent so that sites don’t spam appeals for their blatantly
outside-the-rules content.

~~~
onetimemanytime
Most scam sites know better...they try to get another adsense account, if
possible, when caught. I guess Google can have different tiers of support.
Those adjudicating initial appeals need not be Stanford grads, for 95% someone
making $20 an hour will do. When in doubt, notch it to the next level.

------
craftyguy
> A page about a 1986 porn bill got demonetized shows how algorithms can’t be
> expected to make judgement calls.

Another day, another article about how we cannot rely on algos. Yawn.

~~~
untog
You don't think it's a topic worth talking about, given that we're shifting
more and more decisions onto algorithms?

~~~
mimimihaha
It makes me scared to think that the government has to be trying to develop
algorithms to give advice to people higher up on the military branch about the
decisions they should make like in eagle eye.

~~~
dictum
Who doesn't love plausible deniability?

You don't even have to rely on the failed excuse of "just following orders" if
you lose, you don't even have to admit that you "didn't know what you didn't
know":

The machine inferred the _wrong thing_ based on _nobody 's_ orders, and
carried it out _despite our wishes_. The damn jalopy!

------
google_censors
Does anyone know exactly when Google decided to become the pearl-clutching
Tipper Gore of search engines? We had a similar problem a long time ago with
Google and it seems like it hurt our page rank at the time. There was nothing
legislative that would have had any influence at the time, so it has to be
coming internally, and from fairly high in the food chain.

~~~
sdenton4
March 2017, to be precise...

[https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2017/3/24/15053990/google-
youtube-advertising-boycott-hate-speech)

The Alt Right: This is why we can't have nice things.

~~~
google_censors
My site was hit around 2010, so that's definitely not it. And they've been
censoring adult content for longer than one year.

------
v-i-09x
This is because a computer has no sense of social context.

It can't aggregate what the general public feels is "OK" on its own, which is
how human society defines what material is available.

It will rely on a bland list of words fed to it by paranoid controllers who
fear the wrath of emotionally captured adults.

It won't at all reflect the variety of opinion. It will be TV 2.0

