
Google bans two websites from its ad platform over protest articles - fooey
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/google-bans-two-websites-its-ad-platform-over-protest-articles-n1231176
======
fooey
Looks like NBCNews got this story wrong.

Google is saying they never demonetized the sites, but instead worked with
them to address issues in their comment sections

[https://twitter.com/Google_Comms/status/1272997425821540352](https://twitter.com/Google_Comms/status/1272997425821540352)

[https://boingboing.net/2020/06/16/google-bans-the-
federalist...](https://boingboing.net/2020/06/16/google-bans-the-federalist-
and.html)

[https://www.businessinsider.com/google-blocks-ad-revenue-
zer...](https://www.businessinsider.com/google-blocks-ad-revenue-zerohedge-
the-federalist-blm-2020-6)

~~~
mardifoufs
Yeah the whole story didn't make sense, it really would have been an
unprecedented act from Google and I don't see them setting that precedent.
Ironically, it shows how NBC... lied to us? The joke kind of writes itself at
this point.

------
mardifoufs
Yeah, okay this is definitely weird. I sort of get banning outright fake news
and Zerohedge is a very shady website, sure.But the Federalist's article is
not fake news. You can disagree with it, but it's part of a debate on the
media coverage of the protests. People have always complained about media
being unfair and biaised. Is it now promoting hate and misinformation to
criticize the media? Or do we have to just trust NBC to judge if the media did
adequately cover violence or not?

At this point we have moved from arguing for taking down false stories to
taking down criticism in... A month? That's a little bit insane and scary

And I get that advertisers don't want to run their ads on controversial
stories, but the Federalist is all about politics and it is to be expected
that ads running there will be... Political, no?

~~~
rsynnott
However, advertisers will generally not want their ads served beside false and
inflammatory content. Google Ads is, ultimately, a platform for advertisers,
and they've always avoided certain subjects. If you're an advertiser who
_does_ want your ads alongside porn, conspiracy theories, warez, multilevel
marketing scams, and so forth, there are platforms out there, but Google Ads
probably isn't your best venue.

Or, indeed, more esoteric stuff. For instance, if you want your ads to appear
alongside the sale of tigers or fake sneakers, you should look to another
network. Google's one of the stricter ones.

In this case, per the article, the issue was the comments. You can imagine how
abhorrent the comments on The Federalist are likely to be.

~~~
leereeves
They're unlikely to be any worse than YouTube comments. Aren't those served by
the same ad network?

~~~
adrianmonk
YouTube definitely gets plenty of horrible comments as well. An important
question is how well each site polices comments to remove ones that violate
the rules.

~~~
nickff
YouTube obviously isn't policing very well if all of us are seeing the
horrible comments...

------
retortio
> "On the recent protests, ZeroHedge published an article claiming that
> protests were fake, while The Federalist published an article claiming the
> media had been lying about looting and violence during the protests, which
> were both included in the report sent to Google."

It's a perfectly reasonable argument to make that many mainstream media
outlets were downplaying the amount of rioting and looting going on relative
to peaceful protests.

Yet somehow it's now WrongThink to even discuss how media may be shaping
perceptions through biased reporting?

And now NBC's news-vigilantism unit can tattle to Google and shame them (and
advertisers on the Google ad network) into pulling ads because two websites
had the audacity to question NBC's narrative?

A healthy society functions best when there are checks and balances on all
sides but unfortunately there are some who are using the recent protests and
BLM to push Orwellian control of culture and media that is frankly quite
disturbing.

As an aside, what exactly is "far-Right"? I've never seen any non Leftist
publication described as "Right" so I'm not sure what adding "far" does other
than function as a smear on anything Right of the mainstream Left.

~~~
noble_pleb
The bigger question to ask here is where is the Google Adsense competitor?
Google may have some favorite political inclination and being a private firm
also has the right to deplatform anyone. But why has no Adsense alternative
emerged even after so many years? Do people just enjoy Google's monopoly in
advertising?

~~~
retortio
Monopolies are able to exist precisely because it's hard to challenge them.

That's why people saying "the free market will sort things out" with regard to
free speech are deluding themselves. I'm not willing to wait 50 years for the
free market to sort itself out while the ideal of free speech is torn asunder
by private corporations.

~~~
mikece
It's actually quite easy to start a Google Ad Words competitor... it's even
possible to make money. But when Google addresses the threat by offering a
huge buy-out, saying "No" is very hard (and that's setting aside the question
of possible investors taking the decision out of your hands).

------
adrianmonk
Can the HN title be changed to match the NBC one?

NBC's title says (emphasis mine), "Google bans website ZeroHedge from its ad
platform over COMMENTS ON protest articles".

There seems to be a lot of confusion over the reason for the ban, with people
discussing how the sites' articles themselves might or might not violate
policy.

NBC makes it pretty clear that's not the reason when it says "over policy
violations found in the comments section".

~~~
remarkEon
NBC's original article did not include the distinction that it was for
"comments on" the protest articles, which honestly makes Google's decision
more absurd (imo).

[http://web.archive.org/web/20200616191520/https://www.nbcnew...](http://web.archive.org/web/20200616191520/https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-
news/google-bans-two-websites-its-ad-platform-over-protest-articles-n1231176)

Original headline: Google bans two websites from its ad platform over protest
articles.

~~~
adrianmonk
Yeah, I thought that might be the case but wasn't sure. I think I even saw
another version that came between what you linked to and the current version.

Whether it's better or worse is a whole other topic. Right now the world seems
to be struggling with the question of who should police online behavior and
how. That includes questions about how much responsibility a site has for
user-generated content.

~~~
remarkEon
>That includes questions about how much responsibility a site has for user-
generated content.

That is absolutely a legitimate debate to be had. I'm not quite sure how I
feel about Google setting the terms of that debate, however. Usual caveats
about how Google is a "private" company apply, obviously, but it does seem
like a problem when a tech company with a wholly different perspective on
what's "allowable" online speech and conduct uses it's market power in ads to
set the rules for others.

Maybe I'm being a little dense, but I've never really like the phrase "user-
generated content". At least it's honest, I suppose, because it suggests that
it's something that can be "monetized" (because it's "content"). I miss old
paper newspapers, and "letters to the editor".

------
remarkEon
Odd, Google is now claiming The Federalist was never demonitized [1]. What is
going on here? Did NBC spike a story too early?

[1]
[https://twitter.com/Google_Comms/status/1272997425821540352?...](https://twitter.com/Google_Comms/status/1272997425821540352?s=20)

~~~
0xy
NBC lied by inventing a false quote from Google to take out a competitor.

------
A4ET8a8uTh0
I find it troubling. Ignore for a second the discussion over why, whether
Google can or should do that.

It is not a one random decision. It is a concerted effort to silence
dissenting voices. I am not sure how anyone can cheer here.

It just encourages even worse polarization and further entrenchment. It does
not lead anywhere good.

~~~
seesawtron
Welcome to the realization that private corporations have too much control
over the world and the worldview and governments that are publically elected
rely on those corporations and their resources and their platforms to stay in
power. I just have one question that I struggle with: what should one do about
it?

Chomsky said "Organize and create mass movements". Does that still work today?
The mass movements created uproar which led to an impeachment trial of a said
individual but nothing came out of it. How would one go about to dismantle and
re-structure a world where states and private firms co-depend on each other?
Sadly I am at loss.

------
mikece
I know it's trendy on the right to say that the ultra-liberal Silicon Valley
types are trying to ban conservatives from Facebook, Twitter, YouTube etc. but
I believe it's more accurate that ADVERTISERS on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube,
etc, in the name of brand safety, don't want controversial conservative
content showing up adjacent to their advertising.

If Google were to make this argument, that concern for the brand-safety of
their advertisers, they are pulling the ability for these sites to show ads
that would make sense and be somewhat defensible... but are they simply saying
these sites can still show Google ads but they cannot make money from the ads
while Google still does? THAT would be different.

~~~
throw_m239339
Banning something isn't very "liberal". But maybe in US people have a
different understanding of what "liberal" entails.

~~~
seesawtron
Are you implying that nothing should be "banned" at all? There are examples of
tons of things that have to be banned to keep the society sane at some level.
For examples, things that are considered illegal by the publically elected
governments and hence are banned to be shown on the internet or elsewhere or
promoted in anyway. What matters more is how are the decisions made whether to
ban or allow some content.

In the non-virtual world, there is a publically elected state that makes those
decisions. In the virtual world, those decisions are made by private companies
that own that part of the virtual world. Ever since the creating of the
virtual world, there has been an ongoing tug-of-war between the state and the
corporations for this exact control of authority. Now that our virtual and
non-virtual worlds are so intertwined with each other, the state is still
trying to catch up to understand, contain and secure the virtual world but
they are still at loss.

