Google Financially Blacklists Conservative News Site, Warns Another Over User Comments

In this new digital world, what we’ve gained as far as the reach of our words we’ve lost in terms of control.

You see, anyone can open up a Twitter account these days, or start a blog, and spread their beliefs and ideologies globally, almost in real time.  Twitter, Facebook, and other platforms are very much the new public square, and these social media magnates have very much built their immense power and wealth on the content provided by their users.

And, now that they have that power and wealth, they are wielding their inventions like political weapons, and shaving off whatever bits of their user base no longer fit the agenda.

In the case of Google, it’s even worse, as the company accounts for a majority of all ad revenue online.  This means that, should their next CEO disagree with your political stance, you, too could be facing a fiscal reckoning.

Google has banned ZeroHedge, a far-right website that often traffics in conspiracy theories, from its advertising platform over policy violations found in the comments section of stories about recent Black Lives Matter protests.

Google also issued a warning on Tuesday to The Federalist over comments on articles related to recent protests.

A Google spokesperson said in an email on Monday that it demonetized the websites after determining they 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.”

The crux of the issue, of course, is that Google is a private company that can choose to do business with whomever they wish – something that could come to a head in the coming months as fears of digital electoral interference mount.