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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

#231

Post by Excel_Wizard »

In all likelihood, Gabbard and her campaign managers are perfectly aware that: 1. Google's automatic account suspension systems were doing exactly what they would do for any other account.

2. There was no intentional discrimination/meddling.

A sudden spike of search traffic corresponding with a sudden influx of advertising spending is likely to trigger red flags for the system. 6 hours of downtime for these google ads did damage her campaign, but Gabbard, or anybody, is not entitled to 100% uptime for a service provided by a corporation, except to the degree that it violates a contract/ TOS.

“Google’s discriminatory actions against my campaign are reflective of how dangerous their complete dominance over internet search is, and how the increasing dominance of big tech companies over our public discourse threatens our core American values,” Gabbard said in a statement. “This is a threat to free speech, fair elections and to our democracy, and I intend to fight back on behalf of all Americans.”

Her statement quoted above make me like her less, and I don't feel like I'm a particularly pro-google guy.

Re: Tulsi Gabbard Sues Google for Suspending Ad Account

#232

Post by compuguy »

fuzz4lyfe wrote: post #220
compuguy wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last time I checked, Vox media isn't tied to, nor funded by the Russian government. Russia Today (RT) is.

Is Fox News funded by the Russian Government? If not, does that make them ok? NPR is funded by the US government does that make everything they say untrue? Seems like it might be better to use critical thinking of work off original sources rather than trusting any media organization to do that for you.

That's what I do in general with articles. Russia Today has a pretty consistent and documented history of being a propaganda outlet for the Russian government: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RT_(TV_network)#Propaganda_cla...

Re: Tulsi Gabbard Sues Google for Suspending Ad Account

#233

Post by compuguy »

kspacewalk wrote: post #185
nailer wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep on mind the top post is recommending we read a Vox media site.

Vox is not a conspiracy theory laden government propaganda outlet.

Exactly. That was the point I was trying to make in my previous comment.

Re: Tulsi Gabbard Sues Google for Suspending Ad Account

#234

Post by dimator »

Excel_Wizard wrote: post #229

In all likelihood, Gabbard and her campaign managers are perfectly aware that: 1. Google's automatic account suspension systems were doing exactly what they would do for any other account. 2. There was no intentional discrimination/meddling. A sudden spike of search traffic corresponding with a sudden influx of advertising spending is likely to trigger red flags for the system. 6 hours of downtime for these google ad…

Not to mention, as a private company, Google could do whatever it wanted anyway, there is no first amendment protection.

This lawsuit is probably going to get dismissed, so I have to treat it as a stunt to get some cheap headlines.

Re: Tulsi Gabbard Sues Google for Suspending Ad Account

#235

Post by ggm »

Excel_Wizard wrote: post #229

In all likelihood, Gabbard and her campaign managers are perfectly aware that: 1. Google's automatic account suspension systems were doing exactly what they would do for any other account. 2. There was no intentional discrimination/meddling. A sudden spike of search traffic corresponding with a sudden influx of advertising spending is likely to trigger red flags for the system. 6 hours of downtime for these google ad…

I am not an american and know none of the players. However I do use google ads. What I see, is that in two independent google accounts, running campaigns on the same search terms and keyword triggers, there are times I can show my two accounts "compete" for the same mindshare.

In any normal endeavour this is just how it works, but in politics, the consequences of a differential treatment of two candidates in the same space is not good for democracy.

I don't know who I support, but a framework which accepts money for placement and then determines an asymmetric bias in placement irrespective of bid price, and then perturbs visibility of political ads, is going to be mis-understood and mis-represented as systemic bias by somebody. Its human nature to assume its human centric behaviour, not a heuristic breakdown. Hanlon's razor isn't always well applied.

Re: Tulsi Gabbard Sues Google for Suspending Ad Account

#236

Post by fuzz4lyfe »

compuguy wrote: post #232
fuzz4lyfe wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is Fox News funded by the Russian Government? If not, does that make them ok? NPR is funded by the US government does that make everything they say untrue? Seems like it might be better to use critical thinking of work off original sources rather than trusting any media organization to do that for you.

That's what I do in general with articles. Russia Today has a pretty consistent and documented history of being a propaganda outlet for the Russian government: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RT_(TV_network)#Propaganda_cla...

The New York Times has a documented history of being a propaganda outlet for the US government: https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2014/07/01/how-the-iraq-wa...

Just curious do you bring that up in every time someone quotes them as well?

Re: Tulsi Gabbard Sues Google for Suspending Ad Account

#237

Post by moultano »

repolfx wrote: post #212
moultano wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's a very strong claim you're making there. Do you not consider mixins from News and YouTube to be "web pages"? I've also worked at Google. Things that are clearly the case: 1. There are blacklists of certain political query completions on web search, like "hillary clinton emails". 2. There is a controversial query blacklist on YouTube with political content. Go look at the file in google3 if you really think the…

1. There are not blacklists of "political" query completions, as I explained extensively in this other thread. The policy is to not show "sensitive and disparaging terms associated with names" in autocomplete. This applies uniformly, and there's nothing political about it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20530414

2. I can't speak to YouTube's policies, but there isn't any evidence there that this was designed to favor either side, rather than just to avoid the issue entirely.

3. The guidelines that Google uses to assess the quality of websites are public. You can read them here: https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en...

Re: Tulsi Gabbard Sues Google for Suspending Ad Account

#238

Post by LorenPechtel »

not_a_cop75 wrote: post #106
slg wrote: 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…

I don't know how they could mistake a major political candidate spending as spam. Seems like reckless neglect, really.

There are two separate issues here:

1) The spending. That tripped some sort of fraud detector that caused a shutdown until a human intervened. No big surprise, I'm sure we've all triggered fraud detectors at one time or another, even ones that should have had a bit more brains. (Hey, it's Black Friday. You know I make a decent number of electronics purchases, is it any wonder I made several that day?!)

2) The spam filtering. Just because it's a presidential candidate doesn't mean it isn't something people regard as spam.

Re: Tulsi Gabbard Sues Google for Suspending Ad Account

#239

Post by BryantD »

bufferoverflow wrote: post #214
BryantD wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As I said, they all have horrible reputation to me - I've seen major lies in all major news sources. They all editorialize to fit their agenda. Left or right wing, all bad. But since you're the one claiming these particular videos are somehow edited, present your evidence. The burden of proof is on you.

That's interesting. Where exactly did I say these particular videos were edited? I only have one comment in this thread, should be pretty easy to point it out.

In the event that you realize you read something into my words that wasn't there, I would politely invite you to ask whether or not that reflects on your priors regarding all major news sources.

Re: Tulsi Gabbard Sues Google for Suspending Ad Account

#240

Post by frank_nitti »

dragonwriter wrote: post #91
frank_nitti wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 30…

Okay, thanks for the information. I suppose I was referring to those candidates which met the threshold of support to be included in the debates on national television. And indeed, that seems to be a reasonable place to "draw the line", in my opinion. There is a very high likelihood that anyone speaking on national TV would be searched on Google.

Tulsi Gabbard falls well within the category of candidates. So, while I concede that the line ought be drawn, I still believe the post I responded to was arguing in bad faith, given Hubbard's popularity

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