Google’s Power to Censor the World

Google, as the world’s predominant online search engine and conduit for online advertising, possesses tremendous power to dictate what information people are exposed to on a daily basis.

Last summer, it was widely reported that the auto-complete function in Google seemed to suppress negative stories about Hillary Clinton.

Robert Epstein, writing for U.S. News in a piece titled “The New Censorship,” noted that last summer during the presidential campaign when a Google searcher typed “lying T…” Google would auto-complete “lying Ted,” while a similar search for “crooked Hillary” by going even farther, typing “crooked Hill …”, would not bring up any negative results. Meanwhile both Yahoo and Bing searches would immediately call up “Crooked Hillary.” A search on Google currently will generate Crooked Hillary.

Epstein explained that the auto-complete “blacklist” is just one of nine ways Google can censor and suppress information.

Another is through its Adwords and Adsense programs. Many political (and non-political) websites derive a significant portion of their revenue from working with Google to use key words in their content for ad placement.

Epstein explained, “The way it works is simple: Businesses worldwide bid on the right to use certain keywords in short text ads that link to their websites (those text ads are the AdWords); when people click on the links, those businesses pay Google.”

Google then turns around and pays a portion of that revenue to the host site on which the business ad was placed. Western Journalism and its sister site Conservative Tribune generate revenue this way.

As the one-stop and dominant shop for placing online ads, Google can in effect blacklist views it does not support by cutting off a company’s revenue stream. It can do this for specific stories or ban an entire website from generating ad revenue through Google, if it determines the policy violations to be egregious or consistent enough.

Examples of prohibited material include dangerous or derogatory content (threatens or advocates harm to oneself or others or promotes hatred or discrimination against people based on race, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, etc.), adult content (pornography, etc.), illicit drug use, irresponsible alcohol use, the sale of weapons, and violent content.

Western Journalism and Conservative Tribune both recently received notices about stories not being in compliance with Google Publisher Policy, due to violent content. In both cases the stories were about ISIS.

The Western Journalism piece flagged was about ISIS releasing an execution video. The story–published over two years ago, in March 2015–contained a warning to readers that the descriptions and images in it were graphic.

The full video was not included in the story, only an edited version, which did not show the moment the terrorists blew up 10 captive victims whose crime was “apostasy” or the aftermath of the blast. The article also pointed out that ISIS has released multiple videos of gruesome killings including the drowning of their victims in a cage, beheading them using explosive cord, and firing an RPG into a group of them locked in a car.

Another story by Conservative Tribune from Feb. 2016 was also flagged by Google as being in violation of its content policy. The story dealt with ISIS beheading a 15-year-old Iraqi boy for listening to Western-style pop music.

Western Journalism contacted Google for comment on its decision to pull its ads from the articles.

Suzanne Blackburn, with Google’s public affairs office, stated the company adopted its publishing policies with an eye to balancing the needs of all interested parties.

“We have to consider the impact on the advertiser, the user and the publisher,” Blackburn said. “So we’re considering those three groups and how we can protect each one in terms of our policy. So policy and policy enforcement is always a balancing act.”

She said Google’s decision to pull ads from a story is not a comment on the quality of the journalism.

“We’re just saying it is not appropriate to be monetized. We don’t want to make money on it, and we don’t feel our advertisers want to appear on it.”

When asked why the stories were just being flagged now, given that they were published a year or more ago, Blackburn could not comment directly, but stated that Google relies heavily on users to report potential content violations to the company. Judging by this information, it would seem likely in these instances that a third party contacted Google, which then decided to pull the ads down.

Liftable Media CEO Patrick Brown expressed concern that Google’s enforcement against ISIS articles disincentivizes covering the group’s true nature.

“If Google is automatically removing ads from any article or video that mentions ISIS or their atrocities, I find this very troubling,” he said.

Brown added, “Of course they are free to remove their ads from any news source they like. But my concern is that if publishers don’t get paid to write or create videos about ISIS, the financial incentive to cover news about them is removed, which in turn could mean less journalism and less awareness of their crimes.”

Brown further promised that Western Journalism and Conservative Tribune would continue to report on ISIS even if there is little or no financial return.

YouTube, which is owned by Google, also demonetizes content it finds objectionable, meaning the video creator’s revenue stream is cut off.

Joe Miller — publisher of the most popular political site in Alaska, Restoring Liberty — told Western Journalism that YouTube demonetized a number of his videos that included experts in the field discussing Islamic extremism, and that Google pulled ads from his site entirely last month.

“I think this is a lesson to anti-establishment sites that they have to develop a means of support from outside of these establishment-controlled internet giants,” he said.

As reported by Western Journalism, conservative commentator Steven Crowder claims YouTube is trying to silence conservative viewpoints by both restricting who can watch the content and by shutting down providers’ revenue streams.

In March, the host of Louder With Crowder — which airs via YouTube, podcast and Conservative Review’s CRTV online streaming service — noted on his program the different treatment his program receives from YouTube versus that given the liberal The Young Turks show.

Some of the Louder With Crowder programs that were restricted included subjects like socialism and the history of single-payer health care which, the host argued, would be informative for younger and older viewers alike.

Crowder said his programs are all FCC-compliant, with any foul language bleeped out, unlike the liberal political show The Young Turks, which he described as “far more profane” and which would be designated an R-rated film.

YouTube was also charged with unfairly targeting conservative views last fall when it put 21 of Prager University’s videos in restricted mode. The organization was founded by radio talk show host Dennis Prager and seeks to promote “the principles that have made America great.”

The organization responded to YouTube’s decision by saying, “There is no excuse for Google and YouTube censoring and restricting any PragerU videos, which are produced with the sole intent of educating people of all ages about America’s founding values.”

Blackburn admitted Google does not always get it right when deciding whether to pull ads from articles or videos.

“Every now and then we make mistakes. These are human reviewers. There are channels both for Adsense publishers or content creators on YouTube to push back if they feel their videos have been unfairly demonetized,” she said. (For more from the author of “Google’s Power to Censor the World” please click HERE)

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