this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2024
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[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago (3 children)

The communication suggests this is coming from Google AdSense which is the publisher advertising side of things, informing the site admin that their site contains content that will likely result in them being removed from being eligible to sell ad slots to advertisers on their network.

Whether or not the assessment of individual flags are correct is another discussion (of which I genuinely don’t care and don’t have time to look into), but it is perfectly normal and acceptable for ad exchanges, Google AdSense in this case, to inform publishers that they’re about to lose out on profit potential because their content is not in compliance with what the advertisers are expecting from the exchange.

Google AdSense could just as easily immediately kick the publisher from the program, at which point they’d no longer be eligible to sell ads through AdSense, but their content will continue to remain online. No censorship is taking place here.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

Adtech has been controlling the Overton Window too long. That's what fueled the rise of (actual) fake news, as originally observed coming from Estonia, radicalizing dumb Americans.

https://www.canadaland.com/podcast/774-the-ad-money-fuelling-fake-news/

[–] [email protected] -4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I don't think there's anything normal or acceptable about a private entity acting as a gatekeepr to the internet and deciding what content people can see based on their own opaque reasons.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago (1 children)

No one needs to pay to put ads next to content they don’t agree with. Google is informing them that advertisers don’t want their ads on these pages. They don’t have to remove the pages, thereby not being censored, they’d just suffer the consequence of not getting ad revenue.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Google has become the main way people find content online, and if content doesn't show up in search results then it's effectively censored. The consequence here is that advertisers decide what content is acceptable. Again, this is very clearly a big problem for society.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

This has nothing to do with search. Just advertising. They’ll remain in search results as long as they don’t take the page down and remain otherwise complaint with search policies.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 8 months ago

Google's search algorithm is equally opaque and almost certainly driven by advertisers as well. This is a well known problem.