Google won't say why it took down more than 300 Trump ads
More than 300 ads made by Donald Trump's campaign have been removed from Google and YouTube. Why? The platforms won't say.
The discovery was made by 60 Minutes in the course of reporting a story about YouTube's struggle to fight hate speech. Ironically, though, while the ads were listed in YouTube's "Transparency Report," there was no actual transparency as to why the videos were removed.
Unsurprisingly, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki played coy when asked about the ads by 60 Minutes' Leslie Stahl.
Stahl says it pretty succinctly in the above clip: "There's no transparency in the transparency report."
What makes the whole thing even weirder — or more infuriating, depending on your tolerance for social media chicanery — is that YouTube was just fine with a controversial ad from the Trump campaign that leveled false accusations at Democratic candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden over ties to the Ukraine.
You can check out the report on the Trump ads for yourself here.
But you'll also notice two other things about the ads that were taken down, as noted by Stahl and 60 Minutes. First, the ads still run for days at a time, very likely reaching their targeted base anyway. For instance, one ad ran for 19 days before being removed.
Second, Google (which owns YouTube) still gets paid anyway, even if the ad is removed.
The 60 Minutes report comes less than two weeks after Google reported new efforts to restrict political ad targeting and made some clarifications to other rules, like disallowing ads with "deep fakes."
The company also announced it would ban ads that included "misleading claims about the census process, and ads or destinations making demonstrably false claims that could significantly undermine participation or trust in an electoral or democratic process."
But even Google admits this is a half-assed promise in the next sentence, which reads, "Of course, we recognize that robust political dialogue is an important part of democracy, and no one can sensibly adjudicate every political claim, counterclaim, and insinuation. So we expect that the number of political ads on which we take action will be very limited—but we will continue to do so for clear violations."
TL;DR, "We'll kinda try to police ads filled with lies, but what really is a 'lie' anyway?"
On 60 Minutes, the way Wojcicki waved away Stahl's questions about YouTube's inconsistent policy and its even more inconsistent implementation of that policy would make Mark Zuckerberg proud.
It's also worth noting that even when Google takes a stand against running political ads, as it did with the recent elections in Canada, it still manages to completely obfuscate the process despite claims of transparency, like one big shrug emoji.
We've reached out to Google and YouTube about the story and if there's any reason why their transparency report has very little transparency in it. If we hear back, we'll update the story.
Trump should make a TV commercial showing screen shots of the ads Facebook took down. That would wake lots of people up to the bias.
ReplyDeleteI'm guessing he didn't pay his bill. Pretty obvious.
ReplyDeleteThanks. I’m crushed and entertained by your hypocrisy. 😂
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ReplyDeleteWe need legislation that holds social media and search engines to the standards of the First Amendment.
ReplyDeleteWere they written or spoken in Russian?
ReplyDeleteProbably for false claims and misinformation
ReplyDeletecause the cry babies on the left cryed,,why else,,,DUH!!!
ReplyDeleteEasy it's called bias.. they want to choose the President.
ReplyDeleteI think we know why
ReplyDeleteMorals? Ethics maybe ��
ReplyDeleteCapitalism.
ReplyDeleteGood..
ReplyDeleteThey have an anti hate campaign to stop hateful comments and so on so maybe his ads were to extreme maybe
ReplyDeleteMy guess is he didn’t actually pay for them, Google got stiffed by the President of the United States. Big surprise!
ReplyDeleteWhat? That's it?
ReplyDeleteIt's their way of meddling in the next election
ReplyDeleteCause they can't honor a deal.
ReplyDeleteMashable and google against our country. Wished i could find conservative search engine i would change google
ReplyDeleteEither they were straight up lies, or he didnt pay the bill lol
ReplyDeleteTrump is not all bad news
ReplyDeleteEither, Trump didn't pay per contract, or ad contained blatant falsehoods. I'd bet on the not paid for reason. He is notorious for stuffing contractors, vendors and workers. A contract to him is merely a negotiating position. He says so in his book.
ReplyDeletegood, new policy? Fact check first and print no lies
ReplyDeletehttps://youtu.be/ZFGAAa91U3o
ReplyDeleteBecause they were most likely full of lies and false information, not a big mystery.
ReplyDeleteHe’ll be re-elected with or without the ads.
ReplyDeletequid pro quo
ReplyDeleteA mystery? You're joking. Google is biased as hell. Their corporate culture is very biased and can be very hostile to those who don't follow their beliefs. Come on folks, this ain't rocket science. Many companies are this way, either to the left or to the right. This isn't new. Silicon valley companies tend toward the left side of things. This isn't news, this is well known.
ReplyDeletem yeah tell me again who the fascists are. Ha ha ha!!! I love it. It shows their desperation.
ReplyDeleteKAG 2020 ����
You misspelled “capitalism”.
DeleteGive me a break Google. You hate our President since he is cleaning up the deep state which you are apart of.
ReplyDeleteEasy answer Google getting paid more from left I mean the taxpayers money the left steals.
ReplyDeleteIt’s called democrats censoring those that think differently
ReplyDeleteInterference with the election.
ReplyDeleteJeez - he advertises too!?!
ReplyDeleteProbably because It was all lies
ReplyDeletebecause they don't want lies on there
ReplyDeleteRussian bots
ReplyDeleteThe same reason they help Obama win re election
ReplyDeletehttps://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.documentcloud.org%2Fdocuments%2F6557889-State-Department-Records-of-Giuliani-and-Ukraine.html&h=AT1-KMOePGLm55WAxPq_uvfgpeRDXjoMcvQiC1kKFhA319gK8hSgztHRlERDRDi83LczAatMDTWnm4bjZynezZ0HhIqMU6OOih0qYIsZBimHRchP9o9M3DdZIs0v4XN-0g3mmkQ8AEZ99ukh6HNo
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