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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 fa

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?

supercanuck 6y ago
They specifically said the protests were fake and the media was lying. Let's not beat around the bush in terms of language they used. Once again, we have a company choosing not to do business with another company and allowing it to advertise on its property. Free market at work, move along.
- mardifoufs 6y ago
  I'm pretty sure that's Zerohedge, and as I said Zerohedge is full of lunatics that was already kicked off the ad network anyways. The Federalist didn't say the protests are fake, i think. If anything, there seems to be tons of articles about the protests and how they show the "hypocrisy of the left" when it comes to the coronovirus lockdowns. That implies that they aren't fake, and I can't find anything on the Federalist arguing anything like that.
  - supercanuck 6y ago
    Here you go: https://thefederalist.com/2020/06/03/the-media-are-lying-to-you-about-everything-including-the-riots/ https://thefederalist.com/2020/06/03/the-media-are-lying-to-...
    - Rebelgecko 6y ago
      Would you mind pointing out where the lie(s) are in the article? I just skimmed it and even though there's an obvious bias I didn't notice anything that seemed blatantly untrue edit: To expand on that, a statement like "[The media] lied about the Trump campaign colluding with Russia in 2016." is going to be controversial. However because "the media" is such a big umbrella, I'm sure you could find a factually untrue article published about the collusion. It's a bit tautological: if one media source publishes an article saying collusion happened, and another publishes an article saying that collusion didn't happen, one of them has to be wrong. You can decide that without determining whether or not collusion actually happened.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - supercanuck 6y ago
        I'm curious to know what would change your mind? The word lying means an intent to deceive, not just to state something falsely. Being wrong and stating a falsehood vs lying are very different. So maybe try to be your own devil's advocate, and see if you could see how The Federalist could be accused of lying and be unwelcome on someone else' platform.
        leereeves 6y ago
        If the media were simply repeatedly mistaken, with no bias or intent to deceive, their errors would tend to happen in both directions. The Federalist cited quite a few falsehoods that favored the left. Perhaps you could cite some that favored the right? Edit: Excluding the few right-wing media outlets, because it's quite obvious to everyone that The Federalist wasn't talking about them here.
        ihumanable 6y ago
        Here's Fox News photoshopping coverage about CHAZ, they have had to issue an apology over it https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/fox-news-runs-digitally-altered-images-in-coverage-of-seattles-protests-capitol-hill-autonomous-zone/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/fox-news-... Someone had to open the images in photoshop, alter them, and then upload them to a website. This isn't a simple lie of omission or a mistake, this is manufactured content to push a right-wing narrative. Fox News consistently pushed the right-wing line that Coronavirus is a hoax until they were threatened with a lawsuit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifKbwDf51bA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifKbwDf51bA While they were publicly telling their viewers that the virus was a hoax, internally they were implementing remote work and disease control. Here's a giant list of the ways they've supported conservative political goals while actively working against the left, with citations and source material in the footnotes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_News_controversies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_News_controversies
- ALittleLight 6y ago
  People are perfectly free to comment on or criticize relationships or lack of relationships occurring within the "free market". Google's dominant position in the online advertising industry is allowing them to influence political opinions and they are doing so in favor of mainstream media. That seems worth discussing to me.
  - supercanuck 6y ago
    People can choose to take their advertising business to Facebook who is choosing not to censor content.
  - commandlinefan 6y ago
    They're actually trying to use their monopoly to control U.S. elections. This is far worse than any monopolist has ever been accused of in the past: this is not going to help their case if they're actually facing a forced AT&T-style break-up.
seesawtron 6y ago
All being reasonably sensible and being aware and in agreement of the idea that big corporations indeed influence public and political opinions, directly or indirectly, what can someone do about it? Chomsky always says, "Organize!". Organization requires mass involvement. Mass involvement comes when there are masses with same opinions. How would one go about finding masses with same opinions when the mainstream platforms won't allow such opinions to be posted in the first place that they oppose?
- hanselot 6y ago
  gab i guess
rsynnott 6y ago
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 6y ago
  They're unlikely to be any worse than YouTube comments. Aren't those served by the same ad network?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - adrianmonk 6y ago
    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 6y ago
      YouTube obviously isn't policing very well if all of us are seeing the horrible comments...
- 0xy 6y ago
  Google Ads exists to serve the interests of Google alone, and content restrictions are reactive to the threat of losing money. That's why YouTube operated as a "haven for pedophiles" for years. Ads right next to livestreamed abuse on YouTube? No problem! Harmless edgy right-wing doomsday blog? Rule violation.

supercanuck 6y ago

They specifically said the protests were fake and the media was lying. Let's not beat around the bush in terms of language they used. Once again, we have a company choosing not to do business with another company and allowing it to advertise on its property. Free market at work, move along.

mardifoufs 6y ago
I'm pretty sure that's Zerohedge, and as I said Zerohedge is full of lunatics that was already kicked off the ad network anyways. The Federalist didn't say the protests are fake, i think. If anything, there seems to be tons of articles about the protests and how they show the "hypocrisy of the left" when it comes to the coronovirus lockdowns. That implies that they aren't fake, and I can't find anything on the Federalist arguing anything like that.
- supercanuck 6y ago
  Here you go: https://thefederalist.com/2020/06/03/the-media-are-lying-to-you-about-everything-including-the-riots/ https://thefederalist.com/2020/06/03/the-media-are-lying-to-...
  - Rebelgecko 6y ago
    Would you mind pointing out where the lie(s) are in the article? I just skimmed it and even though there's an obvious bias I didn't notice anything that seemed blatantly untrue edit: To expand on that, a statement like "[The media] lied about the Trump campaign colluding with Russia in 2016." is going to be controversial. However because "the media" is such a big umbrella, I'm sure you could find a factually untrue article published about the collusion. It's a bit tautological: if one media source publishes an article saying collusion happened, and another publishes an article saying that collusion didn't happen, one of them has to be wrong. You can decide that without determining whether or not collusion actually happened.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - supercanuck 6y ago
      I'm curious to know what would change your mind? The word lying means an intent to deceive, not just to state something falsely. Being wrong and stating a falsehood vs lying are very different. So maybe try to be your own devil's advocate, and see if you could see how The Federalist could be accused of lying and be unwelcome on someone else' platform.
      - leereeves 6y ago
        If the media were simply repeatedly mistaken, with no bias or intent to deceive, their errors would tend to happen in both directions. The Federalist cited quite a few falsehoods that favored the left. Perhaps you could cite some that favored the right? Edit: Excluding the few right-wing media outlets, because it's quite obvious to everyone that The Federalist wasn't talking about them here.
        ihumanable 6y ago
        Here's Fox News photoshopping coverage about CHAZ, they have had to issue an apology over it https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/fox-news-runs-digitally-altered-images-in-coverage-of-seattles-protests-capitol-hill-autonomous-zone/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/fox-news-... Someone had to open the images in photoshop, alter them, and then upload them to a website. This isn't a simple lie of omission or a mistake, this is manufactured content to push a right-wing narrative. Fox News consistently pushed the right-wing line that Coronavirus is a hoax until they were threatened with a lawsuit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifKbwDf51bA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifKbwDf51bA While they were publicly telling their viewers that the virus was a hoax, internally they were implementing remote work and disease control. Here's a giant list of the ways they've supported conservative political goals while actively working against the left, with citations and source material in the footnotes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_News_controversies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_News_controversies
ALittleLight 6y ago
People are perfectly free to comment on or criticize relationships or lack of relationships occurring within the "free market". Google's dominant position in the online advertising industry is allowing them to influence political opinions and they are doing so in favor of mainstream media. That seems worth discussing to me.
- supercanuck 6y ago
  People can choose to take their advertising business to Facebook who is choosing not to censor content.
- commandlinefan 6y ago
  They're actually trying to use their monopoly to control U.S. elections. This is far worse than any monopolist has ever been accused of in the past: this is not going to help their case if they're actually facing a forced AT&T-style break-up.

seesawtron 6y ago

All being reasonably sensible and being aware and in agreement of the idea that big corporations indeed influence public and political opinions, directly or indirectly, what can someone do about it? Chomsky always says, "Organize!". Organization requires mass involvement. Mass involvement comes when there are masses with same opinions. How would one go about finding masses with same opinions when the mainstream platforms won't allow such opinions to be posted in the first place that they oppose?

hanselot 6y ago
gab i guess

rsynnott 6y ago

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 6y ago
They're unlikely to be any worse than YouTube comments. Aren't those served by the same ad network?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- adrianmonk 6y ago
  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 6y ago
    YouTube obviously isn't policing very well if all of us are seeing the horrible comments...
0xy 6y ago
Google Ads exists to serve the interests of Google alone, and content restrictions are reactive to the threat of losing money. That's why YouTube operated as a "haven for pedophiles" for years. Ads right next to livestreamed abuse on YouTube? No problem! Harmless edgy right-wing doomsday blog? Rule violation.