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Tulsi Gabbard Sues Google for Suspending Ad Account

nytimes.com

81–90 of 260 posts

Re: Tulsi Gabbard Sues Google for Suspending Ad Account

#81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It becomes illegal and election interference when that Corp is a monopoly with effective control of speech and discovery on the internet. No law entitles Google to gaslight America and interfere with democracy.

Under what law?

Multiple FEC laws where companies are barred from electioneering in kind, which is exactly what is alleged to be happening here.

Political activity by companies is regulated. A petroleum company cannot offer in-kind donations of "unlimited" gas to a candidate, without flouting FEC campaign contribution and electioneering laws. Likewise, Google cannot artificially prop-up, or suppress a candidate without breaking FEC regulations

Re: Tulsi Gabbard Sues Google for Suspending Ad Account

#82
post #58

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)

Project Veritas is in no way a reliable source on political issues. Both it and its founder have a long record of being exposed committing fraud.

Project Veritas has a long record of collecting large sums in judgement against those who make such libelous accusations without proof.

Re: Tulsi Gabbard Sues Google for Suspending Ad Account

#83
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.

Which of Tulsi Gabbard’s views don’t align with the “political values” of Google? Sorry if I’m misinformed but from what I’ve seen Tulsi seems like a very reasonable politician. She may be somewhat of an outsider in terms of foreign policy but overall she has pretty standard left-leaning positions and I’ve never heard her resort to extreme rhetoric (a rare quality in today’s politics).

If I’m buying into this logic I would expect Google to take similar action against other presidential candidates like Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders, who are much more vocal in spearheading policies that are against the corporate interests of large tech companies like Google. Have either of those candidates been censored?

Re: Tulsi Gabbard Sues Google for Suspending Ad Account

#84
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Gabbard insinuates the initial suspension was politically motivated The subtext I'm reading is that the "major" political accounts probably have specific flags set by Google internally to prevent automated shut-offs like this. If Google is not applying these whitelist flags to all candidates in a fair and systematic fashion, it would effectively be utilizing their corporate resources to disproportionately benefit c…

>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.

Which is still not illegal.

But it feels so very slimy. Also, such events seem to happen with alarming frequency. (I'm thinking of people's gmail accounts that disappear when their posts go viral, then get quickly restored.) What if electric utilities were like, "oops!" then claim an "algorithm" shut off the power to your campaign HQ. What if internet providers were doing things like that. In those cases, people could switch providers. In the case of online ads, I'm not sure that's a viable option for a campaign and many others.

Re: Tulsi Gabbard Sues Google for Suspending Ad Account

#85
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Project Veritas is in no way a reliable source on political issues. Both it and its founder have a long record of being exposed committing fraud.

I understand you're trying to do character assassination. Thankfully, we have actual videos of google insiders. I also trust my own eyes, I see which political side gets banned en masse by Google, Twitter, FB and other large Silicon Valley companies. Are you going to deny this too?

Ooh, I think I know. Is ISIS the political party of which you speak?

Re: Tulsi Gabbard Sues Google for Suspending Ad Account

#86
On one hand this might seem like Google is trying to hurt her. On the other hand, if there was anyone at Google who was actually rooting for her, and had any input or ability to suspend accounts, this could end up actually helping her, as it pits her against the "big tech" and would in the long term help her chances of winning the election.

But, as they say, sometimes, the algorithms is just an algorithm, and it could be just a routine suspension and Gabbard's campaign saw an opportunity to profit (PR-wise) from it.

Re: Tulsi Gabbard Sues Google for Suspending Ad Account

#88
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Project Veritas is in no way a reliable source on political issues. Both it and its founder have a long record of being exposed committing fraud.

I understand you're trying to do character assassination. Thankfully, we have actual videos of google insiders. I also trust my own eyes, I see which political side gets banned en masse by Google, Twitter, FB and other large Silicon Valley companies. Are you going to deny this too?

Can you provide a different citation than a publication known to generate fabricated claims bolstered by fabricated evidence? (I'm serious and taking you in good faith here for the record.)

Re: Tulsi Gabbard Sues Google for Suspending Ad Account

#90
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)

I work at Google on ranking algorithms for Search. I'm aware of everything that controls how web pages are ranked. If I ever encountered a system that was designed to alter the results for political reasons, I would resign.
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