Google Removes Trump Ads which Mysteriously ‘Violate Company Policy’

YouTube and Google removed hundreds of President Donald Trump’s political ads for his 2020 re-election campaign, citing they “violated company policy.”  What policies did President Trump’s ads violate?

Even if you hired a private investigator, you wouldn’t be able to figure out that information. YouTube and Google’s “transparency report” was not transparent at all.  It offered only vague condemnations instead of precise descriptions of the violations. An investigation by CBS News’ “60 Minutes” uncovered what seems like purposeful ambiguity.

“The archive doesn’t detail what policy was violated,” CBS News reported. “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.”

In other words, Google doesn’t want conservatives to know what policies were supposedly violated, because that means they could simply follow their rules and get their message out to the masses unhindered, right?  Instead, these behemoth companies shroud themselves in mystery so conservative can’t ever truly know which side of the rules they are on.

Lesley Stahl asked YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki about the possible bias of this secrecy. “As you know, conservatives think that you discriminate against them. How do you answer that?”

Supposedly, their algorithms have no way of discerning between Republican and Democratic content and therefore is unbiased.  They insist that they want to enforce the rules across the board.  

Okay, so why not just explain the rules?

Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale accused these companies of muzzling of political speech in a recent statement. He described how users opt in to receive political content.

By doing this, voters are digitally raising their hand and saying, “Please communicate with me.”  This ensures they can be reached and informed as they have directly requested.  Voters can also learn about ways to volunteer on campaigns, about key campaign events and fundraising efforts, and of course, about where and when to vote.  Google is now arbitrarily saying this is not allowed.  There is no other description for this than the muzzling of political speech. Google is clamping down on voter engagement and suppressing voter turnout. …

…Much has been made of Twitter’s equally concerning decision to ban political ads and suppress speech, but because advertising on that platform is ineffective and only a tiny percentage of Americans use Twitter, their impact is insignificant. Google, however, is a serious platform with very deep reach across the entire country.

Exactly.  We live in an era of fake news and disinformation.  Letting candidates directly communicate with voters is one essential antidote to this ever-growing problem.

Image Credit: Pexels

Hat Tip: The Daily Wire