by Chuck Ross
Google is planning to ban The Federalist and Zero Hedge from its ad platform, Google Ads, after NBC News raised concerns to the tech giant about articles that the conservative websites published regarding rioting and looting that occurred alongside the protests over the death of George Floyd.
According to the NBC report, Google notified The Federalist that it will block the site from using Google Ads because of concerns raised over an article related to the protests over Floyd’s death.
The NBC News Verification Unit notified Google of a report from a British think tank that accused them of running insensitive content related to the protests over Floyd’s death.
NBC News, which cited a report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate, said that the offending article from The Federalist had claimed “the media had been lying about looting and violence during the protests.”
A spokesperson for Google told NBC News the websites would be taken off of the Google Ads platform after determining that the articles violated the company’s polices on race-related content.
“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 Google spokesperson said. “When a page or site violates our policies, we take action. In this case, we’ve removed both sites’ ability to monetize with Google.”
Google did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment. A social media reporter for Ad Week reported that Google has not yet banned The Federalist from using Google Ads, but that the site will soon be de-monetized.
The NBC News story does not link to the allegedly inflammatory Federalist article. But the Center for Countering Digital Hate’s offshoot group, “Stop Funding Fake News,” included a June 3 article from The Federalist entitled “The Media Are Lying To You About Everything, Including The Riots.”
The article, by Federalist political editor John Daniel Davidson, disputed a popular claim by the media that white supremacist groups were behind much of the violence that occurred during the Floyd protests.
The NBC News reporter who published the story thanked the Center for Countering Digital Hate for their “collaboration” on the story.
https://twitter.com/AMFraserNBC/status/1272978037987053569
NBC News did not respond to a request for comment about the reporter’s comments.
And Google says it notified The Federalist on Tuesday of policy violations, and it now has three days to remove the violations before the ban goes into effect.
— NBC News VC (@NBC_VC) June 16, 2020
Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton blasted Google’s decision in response to the NBC News story.
Why are only conservative sites threatened with bans over their comments sections? https://t.co/qdOdvBJXM5
— Tom Cotton (@TomCottonAR) June 16, 2020
Cotton was at the center of controversy last week after The New York Times apologized for publishing an op-ed from the Republican calling for deploying the national guard to combat looting and riots that occurred during otherwise peaceful protests over George Floyd’s death.
While Cotton differentiated in his article between peaceful protesters and violent rioters, a group of New York Times staffers complained that the op-ed endangered the newspaper’s black employees.
Editor’s Note: This tweet was added that contains’ Google’s additional remarks about The Federalist.
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Chuck Ross is a reporter for the Daily Caller News Foundation.
