{"id":632683,"date":"2021-08-11T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-08-11T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/googles-new-sledgehammer-tactic-censors-conservative-speech-on-almost-any-platform\/"},"modified":"2021-08-11T08:26:27","modified_gmt":"2021-08-11T12:26:27","slug":"googles-new-sledgehammer-tactic-censors-conservative-speech-on-almost-any-platform","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/googles-new-sledgehammer-tactic-censors-conservative-speech-on-almost-any-platform\/","title":{"rendered":"Google\u2019s NEW sledgehammer tactic censors conservative speech \u2026 on almost any platform | Christian Action"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">30<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fgoogles-new-sledgehammer-tactic-censors-conservative-speech-on-almost-any-platform%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=632683&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div class=\"td-post-featured-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/christianaction.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Piers-Morgan-RS.01.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"entry-thumb td-modal-image\" title=\"Piers Morgan - RS.01\" src=\"https:\/\/christianaction.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Piers-Morgan-RS.01.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"690\" height=\"518\" \/><\/a>Columnist Piers Morgan<\/div>\n<p><strong>Martin Mawyer, president, Christian Action Network<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Someday in the future, someone is going to read this article and say, \u201cThere it was all along. The warning. The plot. How did we ever miss it?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It won\u2019t be that person\u2019s fault for not getting the message sooner. Heck, finding articles with a conservative point of view, especially ones that expose Silicon Valley plots, is nearly impossible anyway.<\/p>\n<p>But things are about to get worse \u2013 far worse \u2013 for consumers of conservative news. It is already happening, in a way that few are even noticing or talking about.<\/p>\n<p>Like all dictators, both actual and would-be, liberal social media giants disapprove strongly of free speech. They cannot bear the free exchange of news, commentary, pictures and videos that they cannot censor or edit. They mask this need for control by setting themselves up as a kind of niceness-police, creating vague \u201ccommunity standards\u201d of tastefulness \u2013 or what they see as truth.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s how they control what is posted on their OWN platforms.<\/p>\n<p>But how can they control what gets posted on the platforms of others, which they don\u2019t actually own? Not just conservative outlets, but major ones like <em>The New York Times,<\/em> the <em>Washington Post,<\/em> and the <em>Wall Street Journal?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The answer to that question was recently discovered and revealed by the British centrist columnist Piers Morgan, in the <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-9856467\/PIERS-MORGAN-Free-speech-dying-woke-Google-helping-dig-grave.html\">Daily Mail<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>To be fair, Morgan did not explicitly wag his finger at Google and Facebook and proclaim, \u201cHere\u2019s how these media giants are censoring conservative viewpoints on websites they don\u2019t own.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But that is the exact accusation he made.<\/p>\n<p>The story has an interesting background. On July 28, 2021, Morgan wrote an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-9835069\/PIERS-MORGAN-Sorry-Simone-boast-GOAT-selfishly-quit.html\">article<\/a> that was published in the <em>Daily Mail<\/em> in which he criticized Olympic gymnast Simone Biles for quitting Team USA during the Tokyo Olympics.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI didn\u2019t share the widely held view that this was an act of incredibly inspiring heroic courage \u2026 especially when the first reasons she gave for quitting were that she wasn\u2019t having enough fun,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n<p>Morgan scolded Biles, suggesting that patriotism, not \u201cfun,\u201d should have dictated her decision to compete or quit.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou are part of Team USA, representing the United States of America, and hundreds of millions of American people watching back home, not to mention all the sponsors who\u2019ve paid huge sums to support you,\u201d Morgan said.<\/p>\n<p>The column generated over 9,000 comments. That\u2019s impressive.<\/p>\n<p>Enter the \u201cwoke\u201d nerds at Google, who didn\u2019t agree with his public lashing of Biles and \u201cput an advertising block on my column eight hours after it was posted,\u201d Morgan complained in a lengthy article.<\/p>\n<p>That is, no advertisements could appear alongside the opinion piece.<\/p>\n<p>What precisely did Google find offensive? As anyone who has suffered from Google\u2019s censorship policies knows, the answer to that question is as clear as a Joe Biden joke. Good luck.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe found some issues that are policy violations that you must fix. No ads are being served,\u201d Google told the <em>Daily Mail,<\/em> which ran the article.<\/p>\n<p><em>Issues?<\/em> Are there more than one? What needs to be fixed? Perhaps a little clarity? Please? Typically, Google never explained the alleged offense(s). So you just have to guess. It\u2019s part of Google\u2019s \u201cfun.\u201d Or maybe you\u2019ll learn to be \u201cnice\u201d faster if you have to figure it out for yourself.<\/p>\n<p>The point is: Google has discovered a back door for controlling news content on third-party websites. If they don\u2019t like what is posted then no ads are placed with the content, meaning no revenue from views of those ads.<\/p>\n<p>Ad income from Google is not just a tiny slice of the revenue pie for online news organizations. As Mr. Morgan points out, \u201cGoogle and Facebook have a virtual monopoly on online advertising revenue, hoovering up 80 percent of the entire market between them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>What kind of chilling effect will this ad revenue loss have on editorial decision-makers? How much self-censorship will result, for purely financial reasons? How much time will be spent analyzing the financial risk of publishing controversial opinion pieces, no matter how cogent or true, especially if they were written by conservatives who rarely agree with these social media mobsters?<\/p>\n<p>By financially punishing news publications over the <em>content<\/em> of their stories, Google and Facebook are making themselves the de facto editorial board. THEY will decide \u201cAll the News That\u2019s Fit to Print,\u201d not the news organizations themselves.<\/p>\n<p>Given the vague offenses that Google (and let\u2019s not forget Facebook) use as \u201ccrimes\u201d to punish via an \u201cadvertising block,\u201d would it not be safest for editorial boards simply to reject conservative opinion pieces? Not even conservative, but simply common-sense, realistic and challenging? Why take the financial risk of posting an article just to find out later one has violated some ambiguous policy that will mean less ad revenue?<\/p>\n<p>The reasons Google gave Piers Morgan certainly left him scratching his head, pondering all the possible policy offenses he may have committed.<\/p>\n<p>Did he write something \u201cdangerous\u201d or \u201cderogatory?\u201d Was it that he \u201cincited hatred?\u201d Did he have \u201ccontent that harasses, intimidates or bullies an individual or group of individuals?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Imagine just for a second or two an editorial board that has to consider dozens of vague, ambiguous and unquantified Google policy violations, examining each and every possible transgression before posting each and every story.<\/p>\n<p>Now that is control. Who would blame a news organization for simply saying, \u201cNo conservative opinion pieces!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Because if arguing for American patriotism, as Mr. Morgan did, is now a Google policy violation, then conservative writers better get used to seeing this deflating email in their inbox:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDear John, thank you for your recent commentary submitted for our news organization\u2019s review and consideration. However \u2026 we want to stay in business and are therefore declining your article.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>What will all this mean for the Everyman with common-sense, conservative, patriotic, and traditional values? First Google and Facebook will restrict what can be posted on their own platforms. Then they\u2019ll make sure similar content can\u2019t be posted on others.<\/p>\n<p>It looks like Google and Facebook are setting up the pieces for a total online blackout of conservative views.<\/p>\n<div class=\"td-a-rec td-a-rec-id-content_bottom td_uid_2_61137b5e282d3_rand td_block_template_1 td-all-devices\"><a href=\"https:\/\/christianaction.org\/our-say\/googles-new-sledgehammer-tactic-censors-conservative-speech-on-almost-any-platform\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/christianaction.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/newspaper-rec728.jpg\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<div>First Seen: <a href=\"https:\/\/christianaction.org\/our-say\/googles-new-sledgehammer-tactic-censors-conservative-speech-on-almost-any-platform\/\">https:\/\/christianaction.org\/our-say\/googles-new-sledgehammer-tactic-censors-conservative-speech-on-almost-any-platform\/<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Someday in the future, someone is going to read this article and say, \u201cThere it was all along. The warning&#8230;..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1895975,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-632683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=632683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632683\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1895975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=632683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=632683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=632683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}