Silicon Valley Silences Dissent

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TRANSCRIPT

Google is ramping up its ongoing censorship of conservative media outlets.

On Monday, the tech giant removed both The Federalist and ZeroHedge from its advertising platform, citing articles written about the Black Lives Matter protests.

A Google spokesman claims they violated its policies on content related to race.

However, on Tuesday, Google told Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson what the ban was really about.

Carlson: "What did ZeroHedge and the Federalist do to deserve this — to be demonetized? We asked Google and they told us that the sites maintain 'unmoderated comment sections.' In other words, readers get to say what they want. Google finds this intolerable."

The ban came after NBC openly collaborated with the Center for Countering Digital Hate — a leftist group known for censoring conservative media outlets — with one employee praising their role in the censorship.

Carlson: "An NBC employee called Adele-Mamoko Fraser forwarded Google executives a screed from a left-wing activist group in England denouncing two sites — ZeroHedge and The Federalist — as 'racist.' Adele-Mamoko Fraser was thrilled by this. She immediately fired off a victory tweet boasting about the censorship she had inspired."

Google claims it warned the Federalist many times before the demonetization, but the co-founder of the Federalist is disputing that narrative: "We never got any formal notice from Google. We never got any notice from their ad team. We learned about this from NBC News — from the reporter, Ms. Fraser," The Federalist co-founder said.

Amid criticism, Google has since backtracked on its decision, giving the Federalist the option to delete the content that provoked the ban.

Yesterday morning the site was remonetized, but only after obeying Google's ultimatum and deleting the website's comment section — entirely.

Zero Hedge remains banned from the search engine's ad revenue platform, leaving conservative media's free speech beholden to the will of Google's terms of service.

Carlson: "If Google will not extend 230 protections to others, Google should not enjoy those protections itself."

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