The only thing more detestable than NBC News’ all-out embrace of political activism is the short-sighted fanaticism of its so-called journalists.
NBC’s Adele-Momoko Fraser reported Tuesday that Google had “banned” the Federalist from its advertising platform. The supposed prohibition came after NBC approached Google with allegedly problematic articles featured on the Federalist’s website.
Fraser’s report quotes a spokesperson who said specifically that they had “removed [the Federalist’s] ability to monetize with Google.” The spokesperson explained further that the conservative opinion website had run afoul of Google’s policy regarding “derogatory” and hateful speech. The Federalist “will no longer be able to generate revenue from any advertisements served by Google Ads,” Fraser reported.
This is not true, Google said later.
“The Federalist is not currently demonetized and has the opportunity to address the issue as described below,” a spokeswoman told the Washington Examiner.
NBC has updated its report to include Google’s denial.
Putting aside for a moment the question of whether someone in Silicon Valley is lying, the bigger issue here is that it was NBC that lobbied Google to go after the Federalist’s revenue stream. Try to wrap your mind around that for a minute.
One of the largest and most powerful news organizations in the United States petitioned one of the largest and most powerful corporations in the world to demonetize a tiny, U.S.-based website because it published allegedly problematic language. If this is not a violation of Google’s “Don’t be evil” corporate code of conduct, it is certainly a violation of the First Amendment principles which NBC News claims to honor and defend. If this is the road we are going to go down now as a nation, with major media groups lobbying major corporations to punish smaller, problematic media groups, things are going to get a whole lot uglier a whole lot faster in this country.
Fraser and her NBC colleagues probably thought they were doing something righteous, but they have actually set a terrible, dangerous precedent where retribution and censorship will become the go-to weapons of choice.
So, here is what happened:
A British non-profit called the Center for Countering Digital Hate published a paper targeting 10 U.S.-based websites that it says have published racist criticisms of the recent protests surrounding the wrongful death of George Floyd. Those websites, the non-profit argued, stand to make millions of dollars through Google Ads.
NBC then approached Google with the Center for Countering Digital Hate’s study, demanding that the tech giant do something about it.
This is where Google and NBC disagree about what happened next.
NBC’s original story quoted a Google spokesperson who said, “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.”
He added, “When a page or site violates our policies, we take action. In this case, we’ve removed [its] ability to monetize with Google.”
A Google spokesperson declined to reconcile the above quote with the tech company’s current position that it has not demonetized the Federalist. A spokesperson for the Federalist did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
The initial NBC report also included a passage where the author bragged that it was her news division, the ironically named “Verification Unit,” that approached Google with the “hate” study, demanding that the tech company do something about the allegedly offensive online content.
“Google blocked the Federalist from its advertising platform after the NBC News Verification Unit brought the project to its attention,” Fraser claimed in a passage that has since been removed from her report.
The Federalist, the NBC reporter explains in the current version of her write-up, has “become well known in recent years for publishing far-right articles on a variety of subjects. … [it] published an article claiming the media had been lying about looting and violence during the protests, which [was] included in the report sent to Google.”
As best I can tell from that description, the allegedly problematic article in question is a not-particularly racist media criticism titled, “The Media Are Lying To You About Everything, Including The Riots.”
Google, for its part, disputes most of NBC’s report, including the part where it says the Federalist came under scrutiny because of specific articles. Google claims the Federalist’s comments section was the problem, not anything written by staff or a contributor.
“To clarify, the Federalist is not currently demonetized and has the opportunity to address the issue as described below,” a spokeswoman told the Washington Examiner. “We have been told that the Federalist removed comments as of this time.”
She adds, “When our enforcement team reviews sites they review the entire sites’ content including the comment section for policy compliance. In this instance … the notification to the Federalist was related to the comments section of the sites (…this is not a new policy). The comments sections consistently violated our dangerous and derogatory policy.”
Shortly after the NBC story went live, Fraser took a victory lap on social media.
“Thanks to [Stop Funding Fake News] and [the Center for Countering Digital Hate] for their hard work and collaboration!” she cheered in a since-deleted tweet featuring the “#BlackLivesMatter” hashtag. Fraser re-tweeted her note of thanks, but this time without the “#BlackLivesMatter” tag, making it at least her fourth or fifth major edit for the day.
The people who work at NBC News are not serious news people. These are political activists with an enormous amount of influence and power, and they act sometimes like they do not even realize it. It is like watching a child play with a loaded gun.
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When the giant meteor eventually hits the earth, I hope it splits in two in the atmosphere with one half turning Washington DC into a crater and the other half making the Silicon Valley part of a larger San Francisco Bay.
If the Democrats start Civil War #2, by the time it ends none of those places will be livable for a long time.
it’s always a non profit (organizations) that stirs the pot, claiming “hate” by someone, when in fact it is (them) that is spewing hate.
the (Non profit) cries out in pain, as it goes for the jugular
The truth is now hate speech.
And rayssiss.
Why does everyone agree to play by leftist rules and let them set the boundaries of what is discussed and acceptable? Google says “its just the comments section”, and its portrayed as some sort of win for The Federalist. As if they are giving in and giving the site a chance to redeem itself. The real question is what are they doing de-platforming anyone, or setting the requirements for what is on the site, for ANY site?
Especially when their immunity shield is based on them being an impartial platform and not a curator/publisher? It shouldn’t matter if anything is on the site is overtly racist or not. If you don’t like it, don’t read it, and mind your own business.
does google make it’s $ from the ads on the side or when it takes us to a business that we look up thru google?
Both