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Tulsi Gabbard Sues Google for Suspending Ad Account

nytimes.com

71–80 of 260 posts

Re: Tulsi Gabbard Sues Google for Suspending Ad Account

#71

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?

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Re: Tulsi Gabbard Sues Google for Suspending Ad Account

#72
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Veritas is tabloid propaganda. They have less than zero credibility.

You realize the rightwingers say the same about CNN, NYT, and other "reputable" sources? They are all dirty, on all sides. Thankfully, we have videos, so we don't have to rely on anybody's reputation.

Nope, reputation is definitely still important. As it turns out, you can edit videos to produce a desired effect/impression -- just saying "it's a video" doesn't really establish objective truth.

Since O'Keefe paid $100,000 to settle a lawsuit centered around edited video designed to make ACORN look bad, it's pretty reasonable to treat his videos with skepticism.

Re: Tulsi Gabbard Sues Google for Suspending Ad Account

#73
post #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 moti…

> insinuates the initial suspension was politically motivated, which seems hard to believe How is that hard to believe? We know for a fact Google does political censorship. https://www.projectveritas.com/2019/06/24/insider-blows-whis... https://www.projectveritas.com/2019/06/25/breaking-new-googl... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ricI5t66cj8 (note these are fresh links just from the last 2 days)

The media analysis skills of folks on HN continue to astound. What makes you think project veritas is a credible source? Im serious.

Re: Tulsi Gabbard Sues Google for Suspending Ad Account

#74

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 ha…

Better that they hash the issue out in the primaries than in the general.

Re: Tulsi Gabbard Sues Google for Suspending Ad Account

#75
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> insinuates the initial suspension was politically motivated, which seems hard to believe How is that hard to believe? We know for a fact Google does political censorship. https://www.projectveritas.com/2019/06/24/insider-blows-whis... https://www.projectveritas.com/2019/06/25/breaking-new-googl... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ricI5t66cj8 (note these are fresh links just from the last 2 days)

The media analysis skills of folks on HN continue to astound. What makes you think project veritas is a credible source? Im serious.

The video recording. Are you gonna claim they are fake?

Re: Tulsi Gabbard Sues Google for Suspending Ad Account

#76

Can anyone think of any likely and plausible explanations for what went wrong on Google's end?

Yes - it's even outlined in the articles. A sudden increase in spending triggered a fraud detection algorithm, and the account was re-established before the next morning when a human verified there was no fraud.

Re: Tulsi Gabbard Sues Google for Suspending Ad Account

#77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>it would effectively be utilizing their corporate resources to disproportionately benefit certain candidates at the expense of others Which is still not illegal. Fox News does it all the time.

Google is a monopoly. Fox News is not.

Monopoly status is legally irrelevant (in direct terms) when it comes to political activity.

Now, it's true that (especially natural) monopoly status is often a justification for laws imposing common carrier rules, but such laws have not been adopted which apply to Google in the activity in question , whether or not such would be a desirable policy, so their alleged monopoly status isn't indirectly relevant that way, either.

Re: Tulsi Gabbard Sues Google for Suspending Ad Account

#78
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Gabbard insinuates the initial suspension was politically motivated, which seems hard to believe. I'm not saying that she is right but it's not hard to believe at all.

Google has been shown to interfere with results that don't align with the company's political values. It's harder to believe that this suspension WASN'T politically motivated.

No, they haven't.

Re: Tulsi Gabbard Sues Google for Suspending Ad Account

#79
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>it would effectively be utilizing their corporate resources to disproportionately benefit certain candidates at the expense of others Which is still not illegal. Fox News does it all the time.

Yeah, Google probably has no legal obligation to be an equal-opportunity ad platform however they really should be more careful when it comes to internal procedures like this. For instance whitelisting all potential candidates would have been a better idea. Besides, if they are so eager to make algorithms decide things like this only to be fixed later by a human, they should at least set better thresholds or include…

However, Google does have legal liability for damages. If you hire me to do a task, and my ineptitude costs you a substantial sum, you can sue accordingly.

Google users have reasonable expectations for monetization, and the shockingly arbitrary & rapid demonetization without notice nor recourse, usually during a narrow window of opportunity, certainly is actionable.

Would be easy for Google to simply withhold payment subject to review, rather than deny payment altogether for the contended period.

Re: Tulsi Gabbard Sues Google for Suspending Ad Account

#80
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>it would effectively be utilizing their corporate resources to disproportionately benefit certain candidates at the expense of others Which is still not illegal. Fox News does it all the time.

Yeah, Google probably has no legal obligation to be an equal-opportunity ad platform however they really should be more careful when it comes to internal procedures like this. For instance whitelisting all potential candidates would have been a better idea. Besides, if they are so eager to make algorithms decide things like this only to be fixed later by a human, they should at least set better thresholds or include…

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