Google confirmed the Federalist was never actually demonetized in a tweet after NBC updated its article. However, the original version of NBC's article cited a Google spokesperson clearly stating "we've removed both sites' ability to monetize with Google," explaining that both sites "violated its policies on content related to race."

While it's impossible to tell without a link, the Federalist specifically called out NBC for directing its reporters not to use the word "riot" to describe the violent unrest unfolding in Minneapolis in the days following George Floyd's killing - an act which might have triggered the network's wrath.

The deplatforming raised more than a few eyebrows on social media as commenters wondered when it became acceptable journalistic practice to rat out one's competitors for insufficient wokeness.

Some questioned when Google had begun demonetizing sites over the content of their comment sections - a policy that would seem to fly in the face of Section 230 protections, which don't only apply to giant tech platforms.

A handful of threats ominously suggested the Daily Caller was "next."

The conservative outlet filmed and reported on Washington DC rioters' attack on an NBC news crew just after midnight on June 3 - something the channel itself conspicuously avoided doing, going out of its way to avoid mentioning the violent interruption to what was otherwise reportedly a peaceful night.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio had harsh words for parents and neighborhood groups "taking the law into their own hands" by cutting locks on city playgrounds, but has continued to defend the protesters who crowd city streets.

The mayor scolded New Yorkers for busting open padlocked playgrounds, during a press conference on Tuesday at which he reminded reporters that the sites are set to remain closed until "Phase 2" of post-coronavirus reopening.

We're not going to allow people to take the law into their own hands. It just doesn't work.

Insisting the continued closure of children's play-spaces is "for a reason," de Blasio insisted he'd been "very sympathetic" and tried to "make it work," but blamed parents for not following the rules. He also threatened to postpone Phase 2 or even return to full lockdown if city residents refused to cooperate, hinting that any suggestion the virus was spreading would push any hoped-for playground reopening into the distant future.

De Blasio's recriminations were playground-specific for a reason, however. The mayor was photographed marching with protesters in East Harlem on Sunday, and has repeatedly defended the George Floyd protesters' flouting of the Covid-19 social distancing measures he insists on applying elsewhere with an iron fist, proclaiming that "an extraordinary crisis seated in 400 years of American racism" trumps "the understandably aggrieved store owner or the devout religious person."

A Hasidic Jewish group was filmed cutting the lock on Williamsburg's Middleton Playground on Monday, presumably reasoning that with the massive protests that have thronged the streets over the past three weeks, the logic that children must be barred from climbing on play equipment for the sake of "social distancing" has been utterly shredded.