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Tulsi Gabbard Sues Google for Suspending Ad Account

nytimes.com

91–100 of 260 posts

Re: Tulsi Gabbard Sues Google for Suspending Ad Account

#91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's totally reasonable for Google to draw the line somewhere in an exceptionally crowded presidential race. Imagine if anybody could get around Google's fraud controls by just declaring yourself a presidential candidate.

It is a bit disingenuous (to say the least) to claim that having to configure a few dozen presidential candidate's accounts is tantamount to letting "anybody" get around Google's fraud controls. I could understand your line of reasoning if the figure was on the order of 100s or more. But when we are talking about less than 50 candidates, this is a ridiculous claim that comes off as a weak attempt to deceive your audi…

> It is a bit disingenuous (to say the least) to claim that having to configure a few dozen presidential candidate's accounts

Even without it being a route around Google fraud controls, there are 791 declared Presidential candidates for 2020, which is a little more than “a few dozen”. [0]

> I could understand your line of reasoning if the figure was on the order of 100s or more.

But...it is; heck, there's close to 300 Democratic candidates. And it would be even more if it was a route around Google fraud controls.

[0] https://ballotpedia.org/List_of_registered_2020_presidential...

Re: Tulsi Gabbard Sues Google for Suspending Ad Account

#92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

[deleted]

Re: Tulsi Gabbard Sues Google for Suspending Ad Account

#93
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.

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

I think you have that backwards. Okeefe has paid 100k in damages to an ACORN employee, for libel.

Re: Tulsi Gabbard Sues Google for Suspending Ad Account

#94
post #18
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…

They've been caught on camera several times now talking about wanting to influence the elections. I keep that in mind when considering their excuses. Sort of like how Bernie got locked out of DNC databases during the last campaign, etc., it gets hard to believe all the coincidences sometimes.

By they, do you mean Google? Was there someone other than Jen Gennai? I think there are a lot of ways to interpret what she said, and it sounded to me, when I read it, that she was referring to the online foreign influence campaigns, but since the discussion was informal and edited, it's hard to know the exact context, or even what her hand in following through on that would look like.

Re: Tulsi Gabbard Sues Google for Suspending Ad Account

#95
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.

I think it most of europe it is illegal. Not so in the US ?

Re: Tulsi Gabbard Sues Google for Suspending Ad Account

#96
post #41

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…

Changed to that now. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20528797 .

In general, I think people would appreciate the link not being to a paywall.

Re: Tulsi Gabbard Sues Google for Suspending Ad Account

#97
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…

Why would you think The Verge/Comcast is an independent source when MSNBC/Comcast spent years firing their anchormen for questioning foreign invasions and WMDs. If you boiled Gabbard down to a single issue, it would be anti-war.

Re: Tulsi Gabbard Sues Google for Suspending Ad Account

#99
post #46
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.

For this to be malicious, it would be an incredibly risky decision by Google from a simple risk/reward standpoint. Gabbard is a huge long shot to win the Democratic nomination let alone the presidency. Putting their finger on the scale at this point in the election cycle to slightly disadvantage a candidate that in all likelihood won't matter is a huge gamble.

Considering what was exposed with the DNC, Press sources and the Clinton campaign last election, along with high level support from Google management and insiders, it's on the edge of conspiracy, but not beyond a reasonable realm of consideration.

Re: Tulsi Gabbard Sues Google for Suspending Ad Account

#100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

In-kind political favors by companies is expressly illegal under FEC regulations. Google propping up a candidate or suppressing another is effectively campaign contributions (or suppression) worth millions of dollars by Google to certain candidates, in violation of FEC regulations.

The monopoly status has weight in such cases, as it can be construed as illegal electioneering, given Google's control over speech discovery on the internet.

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