Google Ads bans ZeroHedge over racist comments
Google has banned ZeroHedge, a right-wing website, over racist comments on the Black Lives Matter movement.
A Google spokesperson said on Monday that the website was banned after finding violations in their content. In an email, the spokesperson 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”.
ZeroHedge was reportedly notified by Google a week ago on its violations. The ban was effected after the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), a not-for-profit NGO based in London, researched 10 websites that published anti-racist articles.
The CEO of the 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.”
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Another right-wing website, The Federalist, had been warned of policy violations by Google. The ban was to take effect in three days but the Federalist has, since, removed its violations.
Google Communications team tweeted, “The Federalist was never demonetized. We worked with them to address issues on their site related to the comments section.”
Sean Davis, Co-Founder of The Federalist, spoke to Fox News and said, “Since we have temporarily removed our comment sections, and I can assure you they will be back, we are back in Google's good graces. But this is a pretty terrifying example of the power that you have of the unholy union of corrupt media and monopolistic tech oligarchs.”