Google has a history of targeting conservative-leaning publishers for censorship by removing their advertising revenue and only reinstating it if they censor their content. This week Zerohedge and The Federalist were targeted after NBC News complained about what it called “offensive” content in their comment sections.
Zerohedge has been banned completely from running Google ads and The Federalist received a “warning” from Google and was forced to remove their comment section completely. Google is a tyrant. They have taken away Zerohedge’s Google ad revenue completely and have forced another independent conservative site to remove their commenting section. It is an incredible amount of power that they wield.
Imagine if they tried to force The BFD to remove its comment section or removed its ad revenue for the crime of wrongthink?
A Google spokesperson tried to justify Google’s tyrant-like actions by claiming that they “have strict publisher policies that govern the content ads can run on, which includes comments on the site. If the site remedies the issues with derogatory or offensive comments, they can be reinstated.”
Google is censoring independent publishers who do not bend to the woke progressive orthodoxy. The words “derogatory” and “offensive” are completely subjective and are being used as an excuse to censor conservative content.
For now, The Federalist appears to have capitulated to Google as they have removed their comment section completely.
I don’t blame them for capitulating. When I was a writer on the blog Whaleoil, Google took away all the ad revenue on no less than 4 occasions for weeks at a time. Advertising was the blog’s sole source of revenue at that time and Google’s actions crippled it financially.
Conservative sites who rely on Google ad revenue are completely vulnerable to Google censorship. Their businesses can be destroyed if their advertising revenue is taken away. The problem for them is that appeasing Google only buys them time until the next activist complains to Google about a comment in their commenting section or a politically incorrect point of view in an article.
The solution to Google’s tyranny is not to capitulate. The solution is to build a reader-supported platform with those who share our conservative values and who vote with their wallets.
So here is the challenge for you all. Do you want conservative voices and sites to wither like a fart in a hurricane, or do you want those powerful conservative voices and sites to grow to such a level that they have the resources to fight the state-funded, left-wing narrative and stand up to Google censorship?
Our traffic is very close to that of The Spinoff. Here is the Alexa traffic rankings for the past year for The BFD, The Spinoff and Kiwiblog:
With the level of funding enjoyed by The Spinoff with their 10,000 members, you could enjoy monthly professional and scientific polling, more paid contributors, investigative reporting like that done by Project Veritas in the US and our own radio station with hosts you enjoy listening to. We could even build a news site to rival Stuff and The NZ Herald.
With 10,000 members funding The BFD we would be able to laugh at any attempt by Google to cut off our advertising revenue or any tyrannical instruction to shut down our commenting section.
It is up to you guys. For those who already are members, we thank you very much for your loyal and ongoing support. Would you consider moving your membership up a level? Every little bit helps.
For those who enjoy our site but aren’t currently a member, would you consider joining? At the very least you can remove the ad content on the site and all for the cost of a soy latte a month. That’s more than you’d get out of The Spinoff, plus you can comment here.
The Spinoff and Google have set us a challenge.
Are we going to let The Spinoff beat us on membership?
Are we going to let Google bully us?
Will you help us beat them?
Check out our membership plans.
To quote the Prime Minister…Let’s Do This.