Google AI Censorship: Google Reverses Itself Fully on Demonetization Threat After Intervention by Matt Taibbi and Our Demonstration of Pervasive Errors

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2024-04-25 19:00:10

We were very gratified at the degree to which readers were concerned and came to our aid after Google put a demonetization sword of Damocles over our head in March. The online ad behemoth designated what it said were 16 posts since 2018 of grievous offenses, such as [ANTI_VACCINATION, HATEFUL_CONTENT, DEMONSTRABLY_FALSE_DEMOCRATIC PROCESS,HARMFUL_HEALTH_CLAIM]. The fact that the Google algo can’t even count was an obvious indicator of how careless the entire process was. (there were only 14 posts due to duplication and inclusion of a non-post). Google had already demonetized theses posts. The threat was that if we did not remove these posts and refrain from future falsely depicted bad behavior, Google would demonetize the entire site.

This was a serious ultimatum. Even though donations provide a substantial majority of our revenues, the loss of the comparatively small ad revenues would still hurt, particularly since we are now in a tough fundraising environment.

To spare you undue suspense, our ad agency notified us yesterday that Google has cleared all the targeted URLs, so now we are in good standing again. Please keep in mind we did not remove a single word from any post, much the less delete any. The only change we made was one where we thought there was material that could offend an advertiser, as in a not-very-well pixelated image of a decapitated head in a 2018. And its author, Mark Ames, suggested we delete it as non-essential to the story.