NBC News on Tuesday falsely reported that Google banned “far right” website the Federalist from it’s advertising platform, after the “NBC News Verification Unit” forwarded a left-wing nonprofit group’s report on “10 U.S-based, racist Fake News sites.”
The Federalist is a mainstream American conservative website that covers politics, policy, culture, and religion.
Much like the the far-left Southern Poverty Law Center in recent years, the British nonprofit Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) targets right-of-center websites to combat what it calls “online hate and misinformation.”
American Greatness also appears on CCDH’s list of “racist fake news sites” in the number one spot.
According to NBC, the CEO of CCDH, Imran Ahmed said: “We found that lots of those companies are inadvertently funding through their advertising content that is outright racist in defense of white supremacism and contains conspiracy theories about George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement.”
Ahmed (@imi_ahmed) is a far-left activist who was a political advisor to Labour MO Hilary Benn from 2012 to 2016. He co-wrote the 2018 book The New Serfdom: The Triumph of Conservative Ideas and How to Defeat Them.
One way to “defeat conservative ideas,” one would guess, would be to demonitize and deplatform them.
NBC cited a Google spokesperson who said in an email that both websites had violated its policies on content related to race.
“We have strict publisher policies that govern the content ads can run on and explicitly prohibit derogatory content that promotes hatred, intolerance, violence or discrimination based on race from monetizing,” the spokesperson wrote. “When a page or site violates our policies, we take action. In this case, we’ve removed both sites’ ability to monetize with Google.”
NBC reported that “ZeroHedge had already been demonetized prior to NBC News’ enquiry,”
In its post, CCDH flagged two articles on the Federalist website; a June 3 piece by John Daniel Davidson titled The Media Are Lying To You About Everything, Including The Riots and a 2017 post by DC McAllister that criticized Dale Earnhardt Jr. for supporting the NFL National Anthem protesters.
Despite its statement to NBC News, Google denied on Twitter that it ever demonitized The Federalist.
The Federalist was never demonetized.
— Google Communications (@Google_Comms) June 16, 2020
The tech giant went on to explain that the problematic racial issues at the Federalist were actually found on the site’s comment section.
Our policies do not allow ads to run against dangerous or derogatory content, which includes comments on sites, and we offer guidance and best practices to publishers on how to comply. https://t.co/zPO669Yd0p
— Google Communications (@Google_Comms) June 16, 2020
A Google spokesman told Adweek’s Scott Nover that NBC got its story wrong.
A Google spokesperson tells me that @NBCNews gets it wrong. Google says The Federalist was notified they *could* be demonetized but hasn't yet been. They can still remedy.
Google also says the sites' comments section not any articles were in violation.https://t.co/Nl9SmJBnEX
— Scott Nover (@ScottNover) June 16, 2020
Nover went on to explain that the Federalist could be demonitized if it doesn’t remedy the problem in the comments section.
To clarify, Google says The Federalist will be de-monetized, but there's a short window between judgement and action, so it's not currently de-monetized. During that window, The Federalist can remedy the actions.
— Scott Nover (@ScottNover) June 16, 2020
Late Tuesday afternoon, Google announced that no action would be taken against the Federalist after its comment section was removed.
As the comment section has now been removed, we consider this matter resolved and no action will be taken.
— Google Communications (@Google_Comms) June 16, 2020
NBC News, meanwhile, stealth edited its story after Google disputed it.
wtf is this update? No correction, the offending quotes aren’t even removed. Their story now has active contradictions pic.twitter.com/VqFa2TpdoB
— Grant Addison (@jgrantaddison) June 16, 2020
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) pointed out on Twitter that the Federalist was hugely instrumental in debunking the Russia collusion hoax, (while NBC News actively participated in pushing fake RussiaGate news).
Google threatens to demonetize The Federalist during an election year.
The Federalist employs @MZHemingway, @seanmdav, and @ProfMJCleveland.
Three people who helped us get to the bottom of the Russia-collusion hoax.
Free speech isn’t just what you agree with.
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) June 16, 2020
Sean Davis, the co-founder of the Federalist announced on Twitter that he would be appearing on Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight Tuesday evening to talk about NBC News’ attempt to cancel his website, and Google’s threats to demonitize and deplatform the news organization.
https://twitter.com/seanmdav/status/1272999159537242112?s=20
Update:
In his opening monologue Tuesday night, Tucker Carlson blasted Google, the MSM and Republicans in congress that have power to do something about unfair tech monopolies but do nothing about them.
“Most media companies are dependent on Google, who will control 70 percent of all online advertising,” Carlson said. “So if you’re in the news business, you obey Google. When Google tells you to do something, you do it. You have no choice.
“They can bankrupt you in a minute and they will. In all of human history, no single entity is ever had more control over information than Google does right now. So if you’re worried about the concentration of power in the hands of a few unaccountable actors, and you very much should be, nobody has more unchecked power than Google does.”
Carlson also made the brilliant point that Google benefits from Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which provides immunity to social media companies. President Trump last month signed an executive order to curb how social media sites use the legislation to prevent legal action.
Google says it now holds conservative websites responsible for the comments of their readers,” Carlson said. “And yet, irony of ironies, thanks to a special carve-out Google has received from the United States Congress — something called Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, remember that — Google itself is not responsible for content on its platform because the Congress says it doesn’t have to be.
So if you’re slandered by someone, for example, and that slander passes through Google’s servers, you cannot sue Google over it. Google is immune from the consequences. Immunity is a very nice thing to have.
Carlson urged Congress to repeal Section 230, saying “if Google will not extend [its] protections to others, Google should not enjoy those protections itself.
“It’s been clear for a very long time that the Big Tech monopolies have now surpassed the federal government as the chief threat to our liberties,” he said. “Google is acting directly to shape what people can say and what they’re allowed to speak. It’s a direct effort to stifle free speech.”
Carlson also called out Senate Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman Mike Lee (R-Utah), as well as Reps. Doug Collins (R-Ga.), and Jim Sensenbrenner, (R-Wis.) for siding with Big Tech over the constitutional rights of the Americans who put them into office.
“Whose side are they on? Again, let us hope for a vigorous primary challenge to these two and any who share this view year in and year out,” Carlson said. “We vote for these people in the fervent hope they will stand up for us when it matters. Now it matters. And now, like every time before they sell us out. Time is up.”
The host had The Federalist’s Sean Davis on next to discuss Google’s attempt to deplatform the site.
Davis said that the move took them completely by surprise.
“We never got any formal notice from Google, we never got any notice from their ad team,” he told Carlson. “We learned about this from NBC News from the reporter Miss Fraiser who emailed a general info account at the Federalist” about Google demonitizing the website.
Davis said he found out that something was going on but it wasn’t quite what Fraiser had suggested. He said it looked like NBC had partnered with the British left-wing site “to use Google go after us.”
He said they had to temporarily remove their comment section to get back into Google’s good graces, but they will be turning it back on.
“This is a pretty terrifying example of the power you have between the unholy union of corrupt media and monopolistic tech oligarchs,” Davis said.