Google Says It Did Not Ban Right-Wing Site The Federalist From Ad Network Over Racist Content

Todd Spangler
·2 min read

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Google denied a report that it had kicked The Federalist, a right-wing blog, off its advertising network over violations of its policy against derogatory content specifically related to Black Lives Matter protests.

On Tuesday, NBC News reported that Google had banned The Federalist from being able to serve or generate revenue from Google Ads. Another right-wing site, called ZeroHedge, was banned from Google Ads last week because of policy violations.

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Google later clarified that “The Federalist was never demonetized” — according to the internet giant, the site was only put on notice that it was at risk of being pulled from Google Ads.

“We worked with [The Federalist] to address issues on their site related to the comments section,” Google’s PR team said in a statement. “Our policies do not allow ads to run against dangerous or derogatory content, which includes comments on sites, and we offer guidance and best practices to publishers on how to comply.”

According to NBC News, Google’s actions against the two sites came after it was notified of research conducted by the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a U.K. nonprofit that “combats online hate and misinformation.”

The Federalist recently published an article claiming the mainstream media was “lying about looting and violence during the protests,” per the NBC News report.

In March, The Federalist published an article titled “How Medical ‘Chickenpox Parties’ Could Turn The Tide Of The Wuhan Virus,” which prompted Twitter to temporarily lock the site’s account until a tweet promoting the article was deleted. Twitter took that action under the social network’s policy prohibiting COVID-19 misinformation.

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