Allum Bokhari
BreitbartMon, 02 Dec 2019 00:00 UTC
© AP/Reed SaxonYouTube's Susan Wojcicki
More than 300 of President Donald Trump's political ads have taken down by Google and its video platform YouTube, mostly over the summer, according to a
report by
60 minutes.
The CBS reporters were
unable to find specific reasons for the mass takedowns of Trump ads, a common problem with social media companies, which are
often reluctant to explain precisely why a ban or other act of censorship has happened. "We found very little transparency in the transparency report," concluded
60 Minutes.
CBS reporters investigated the removal of pro-Trump ads after YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki highlighted the company's decision to ban some of the President's ads during an interview.
Via
CBS News:
60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl asked Wojcicki, "Have you taken down any of President Trump's ads at all?" YouTube's CEO responded, "There are ads of President Trump that were not approved to run on Google or YouTube." When pressed for an example, Wojcicki added, "Well, they're available in our transparency report."
In response to concerns raised after the 2016 election cycle, Google and YouTube, like Facebook, keep a searchable archive of political ads that have run on the site.
60 Minutes reviewed the archive to learn more about President Trump's problematic political ads. We found that over 300 video ads were taken down by Google and YouTube, mostly over the summer, for violating company policy. But the archive doesn't detail what policy was violated. Was it copyright violation? A lie or extreme inaccuracy? Faulty grammar? Bad punctuation? It's unclear. The ads determined to be offending are not available to be screened. We found very little transparency in the transparency report.
The GOP and the Trump campaign have
condemned Google's recent rule-changes around political ads, calling them
a "blatant attempt to suppress voter information" ahead of the 2020 election.
Comment: Has any of Biden's or other Democratic candidates' ads been axed? Likely none - as that would have been part of the comeback argument. It is evident Google censorship starts from the top down regarding Republicans, and 'transparency' is clearly not apparent. Should Google and YouTube be the deciders of which political advertisements the American people see?
Breitbart, 26/11/2019: Republicans condemn Google rule change on political ads
Last week, it was reported that Google plans to stop advertisers from using voter data to create targeted ads. Data such as public voter records and political affiliations will be off-limits to advertisers during the election campaign.
"We're limiting election ads audience targeting to the following general categories: age, gender, and general location (postal code level)," said a Google spokesman. "Political advertisers can, of course, continue to do contextual targeting, such as serving ads to people reading or watching a story about, say, the economy."
In a tweet, Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale said Google's "arbitrary" rule change will "lead directly to suppressing voter turnout." He also shared a statement from the Trump campaign, the RNC, the NRSC, and the NRCC, which declared a similar position.
"There can be no denying that President Trump and his campaign have built the greatest digital operation in all of politics, and that Google's decision will disproportionately impact both the Trump operation and all of the Republican candidates and organizations that derive strength from it," said the statement.
"What's more, given the growing and documented cases of anti-conservative bias in Silicon Valley, we are highly skeptical that such a ban would be applied equally to conservative and liberal organizations."
"Google has made an extraordinarily poor decision which will lead to less-informed voters, lower voter engagement, and voter suppression," concluded the statement, which called on Google to "immediately reverse its decision."
Read the full statement here.
Comment: Has any of Biden's or other Democratic candidates' ads been axed? Likely none - as that would have been part of the comeback argument. It is evident Google censorship starts from the top down regarding Republicans, and 'transparency' is clearly not apparent. Should Google and YouTube be the deciders of which political advertisements the American people see?
Breitbart, 26/11/2019: Republicans condemn Google rule change on political ads