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Tulsi Gabbard Sues Google for Suspending Ad Account

nytimes.com

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Re: Tulsi Gabbard Sues Google for Suspending Ad Account

#5
I'm not a proponent of censorship by any means, but I'm starting to get serious fatigue of these types of stories.

Especially in the case of politicians, I have no sympathy when Google or Facebook or Twitter decides to terminate or otherwise take action on an account. Rally behind them until it becomes inconvenient, then launch a suit! What hypocrisy.

We got here because of our weird fervor for capitalism, holding it up as some pinnacle of society. Yet when a company successfully exploits all that capitalism has to offer, it's screams and outrage!

I admit, I am not fully up to speed on this story. But here's the kicker - after reading this article, I still have no idea what the story is. This is just boilerplate "rally against the big tech companies!" without any rhyme or reason - at least no reason mentioned in the article.

>Please join Tulsi in her fight for our core American values of free speech and fair elections.

Free speech flows two ways, which is often forgotten. Corporate entities are entitled to free speech as well, for the better or for worse. They are also entitled to remove anyone from their platform or limit the services they offer someone. This is baked into the concept of capitalism. The whole legal system is built on the premise that corporations are awarded autonomy / person-hood.

The whole rallying against the corporations which capitalism enabled, in the name of capitalism and free speech.. I just don't understand it.

We wanted capitalism. We got it.

Stop begging for governments to intervene in private companies, while praising capitalism like some god. Pick a path. And then, apparently, ask for some donations.

Re: Tulsi Gabbard Sues Google for Suspending Ad Account

#6
stoked to see this on multiple fronts:

- someone with a vested interest + some modicum of power can hold .google's feet to the fire on this issue and will likely hammer the point home even post-settlement or whatever (remember when they out of the blue suspended my ad account?...)

- Tulsi maybe gets more exposure as a candidate, leading people to her anti-war ideals, which may influence other candidates

admittedly haven't heard google's side but there's precedent here for them committing unwarranted screw ups. of course, if the campaign did do something naughty that'd be a pretty big self inflicted wound.

Re: Tulsi Gabbard Sues Google for Suspending Ad Account

#8
Both sides, Democrat and Republican, are now anti big tech.

Love it or Hate it, when you piss off the most powerful governing body on the planet you're in for a bad time.

My question is more timeframe: Google obviously won't be broken up tomorrow, but probably earlier than a decade from now.

I guess the timeframe depends on who wins the next presidential election?

Re: Tulsi Gabbard Sues Google for Suspending Ad Account

#9
It might be more appropriate to link to a indepdent article about this rather than Gabbard's site. Here is one from The Verge [1].

It sounds like Google's fraud/spam algorithms automatically triggered the suspension (maybe due to a large increase in spend meant to build on Gabbard's post debate momentum). The account was unlocked after human intervention. Gabbard insinuates the initial suspension was politically motivated, which seems hard to believe. But either way, it highlights a long standing problem with Google giving algorithms so much power. It is also potentially more damaging for the all of us who aren't presidential candidates and can't get our accounts quickly restored if we mistakenly anger some unknown Google algorithm.

[1] - https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/25/8930373/google-tulsi-gabb...

Re: Tulsi Gabbard Sues Google for Suspending Ad Account

#10
NYT article that has more information: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/25/technology/tulsi-gabbard-...

The account was inactive from 9:30pm on June 27th - 3:30am on June 28th. This doesn't seem like an act of malice from Google, but rather a verification check.

Some excerpts:

> Tulsi Now Inc., the campaign committee for Ms. Gabbard, said Google suspended the campaign’s advertising account for six hours on June 27 and June 28, obstructing its ability to raise money and spread her message to potential voters.

> After the first Democratic debate, Ms. Gabbard was briefly the most searched-for candidate on Google. Her campaign wanted to capitalize on the attention she was receiving by buying ads that would have placed its website at the top of search results for her name.

> The lawsuit also said the Gabbard campaign believed its emails were being placed in spam folders on Gmail at “a disproportionately high rate” when compared with emails from other Democratic candidates.

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