Critical Mass Has Been Reached: Confirmation Of Google Blacklisting Independent Media Websites
� New Network Geared For Alt Media Bravely Goes Toe-To-Toe With Google
By the middle of 2017 we knew that the attacks against Independent Media had a good chance
to destroy and bankrupt many Independent Media websites, as we have consistently documented
how social media platforms were shadow-banning and censoring conservatives, specifically
those that supported Donald Trump against Hillary Clinton in the 2016 general presidential
election cycle.
Google�s video platform YouTube was and still is demonetizing conservative political
content, and putting entire channels on restricted mode, meaning anyone that had their settings
set to restricted could not even see or search video from those content creators.
Our video channel was one of those that saw all our videos disappeared in restricted mode,
despite no cursing, nudity, or any other actionthat violates YouTube�s terms of service.
Google also manipulated their search engine algorithms, making it harder to find Independent
Media sites on the first pages of their search engine results.
ANP knew it was going to hit critical mass simply by watching ad revenue dwindle away
from the Google Adsense program, which many use to be able to afford to run maintain their
websites, including paying the bills so website owners can afford the time and research needed
to produce original material.
Google allows three ads per page, and as traffic in a non-presidential election year normally
drops between 10 and 20 percent, yet the revenue dropped by over 60 percent, plus all video
revenue disappeared, paid by Google as well, it became clear it wasn�t just traffic Google
was attempting to limit, but they were somehow paying less for the ads that were being served.
CONFIRMATION GOOGLE SECRETLY BLACKLISTING IM SITES
Breitbart News has been given physical proof that Google employees are targeting them by
threatening advertisers, telling them that if they allow their ads on Breitbart, they
will harm their �brand safety.� These employees have gone as far as to collude with
a group called �Sleeping Giants� who set up a campaign to encourage their users to
harass Breitbart advertisers until they agree to no longer advertise or promote the website.
Breitbart News has obtained a screenshot (withheld to protect our source) that shows Google ad
account manager Aidan Wilks advising another company � a client of Google�s � that
advertising on Breitbart may impact their �brand safety.�
In the screenshot, Wilks can be seen linking Google�s client to the website of Sleeping
Giants, a far-left organization that has repeatedly targeted Breitbart and other conservative-leaning
news sites with false claims of racism and bigotry.
The screenshot also shows Matthew Rivard, another employee at Google, advising colleagues
that Wilks� message was a �nice template� for those who wished to �call out� the
issue to clients.
Rivard recommends that the message should be repeated for �other key accounts.�
Until April 2017, Rivard held the position of head of industry for performance advertising
at Google.
This made Rivard one of the go-to people for Google�s advertising clients.
Rivard�s Linkedin page currently lists him as head of industry for branded apparel and
e-commerce.
Harmeet Dhillon, the Republican national committeewoman for the California GOP and attorney for James
Damore, who has also seen the screenshot, said that other Google AdSense users should
be concerned about secret blacklisting.
�This communication from Google�s advertising department raises troubling questions about
whether the company�s ideological bias extends beyond the employment claims covered in our
lawsuit, to Google�s business practices toward AdWords publisher users as well,�
said Dhillon.
�If there are indeed concerted efforts at Google to undermine the advertising revenue
of disfavored publishers (an allegation YouTube is already facing in court through its abrupt
demonetization of Prager University videos), then this conduct may give rise to additional
legal claims.
At a minimum, AdSense users may question whether they are being targeted for secret blacklisting
as described here.�
That explains so much.
If Google is threatening �brand safety� and certain employees are actively working
with the far left groups to force the higher paying ads to stop advertising on Independent
Media websites, then it stands to reason that traffic in a non-presidential election year
can drop the standard 10-20 percent, yet revenue would tank by 60-70 percent, threatening to
knock a lot of us right out of business.
The bad news is, they are succeeding as we have recently reported, two established conservative
sites, Red Flag News, and Right Wing News, have now shuttered, citing the censorship
by Google and social media.
Here is how Sleeping Giants has targeted Breitbart (and others):
Then their 137K followers start targeting those advertisers, as can be seen in their
Twitter feed, harassing them until they stop advertising, and Google employees are actively
promoting and linking their advertisers to the Sleeping Giants campaign to help them
censor and demonetize Breitbart.
That is not the only way Google is targeting Breitbart and other conservative-leaning,
Independent Media, sites either, as they are also keeping a �spreadsheet,� and as Bretibart
states �They have people trawling each article on the site [Breitbart] to see if they can
find comments that might violate their policies in order to justify not trafficking ads.�
Breitbart may be big enough to withstand this type of campaign, but smaller websites cannot.
Many sites, including ANP, started looking for other ad services to supplement income,
to replace other ads, and found there were services out there geared toward Independent
Media, run by people that believed in free speech and were vehemently opposed to big
tech censorship.
Many of us also added donation options, including ANP, LifeSite News, Campus Reform, Government
Slaves, Daily Signal and Daily Caller, just to name a few.
The ultimate goal of looking for alternatives to Google Adsense is so that Independent Media
can survive without Google.
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