Google claims Federalist was 'never demonetized' after NBC News botches report

“The Federalist was never demonetized,” Google Communications tweeted on Tuesday more than two hours after NBC News published its report. “We worked with them to address issues on their site related to the comments section. Our policies do not allow ads to run against dangerous or derogatory content, which includes comments on sites, and we offer guidance and best practices to publishers on how to comply.”

Google added later: “As the comment section has now been removed, we consider this matter resolved and no action will be taken.”

The NBC News report said Google blocked the Federalist after NBC News and its Verification Unit notified the tech company of research conducted by the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a British nonprofit group with a stated goal of combating online hate and misinformation.

A Federalist spokesperson did not immediately return the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.

The NBC News report said a Google spokesperson confirmed to them in an email that they had removed the Federalist’s and ZeroHedge‘s ability to monetize with the company.

“We have strict publisher policies that govern the content ads can run on and explicitly prohibit derogatory content that promotes hatred, intolerance, violence or discrimination based on race from monetizing,” a Google spokesperson said in an email to NBC News. “When a page or site violates our policies, we take action. In this case, we’ve removed both sites’ ability to monetize with Google.”

Adele-Momoko Fraser, a producer with the NBC News Verification Unit, shared her report on Twitter, thanking the Center for Countering Digital Hate and its Stop Funding Fake News project for their help. Her initial tweet also included a hashtag for Black Lives Matter, but that was deleted and replaced with an identical message without the hashtag.

Screen shot, courtesy of Twitter

After the story was published, NBC News updated the story to say the ban would not go into effect as long as the outlets removed content that violated Google’s policies within three days. And the update clarified that the threat to demonetize was about content in the comments section, not because Google “was profiting from articles pushing unsubstantiated claims about the Black Lives Matter protests” as the article initially said in the first paragraph.

“After publication of this story, Google added that it takes into account all of the content on a website, including comments, to determine if a policy violation has occurred, which is where the policy violations are said to have occurred,” NBC tweeted. “And Google says it notified The Federalist on Tuesday of policy violations, and it now has three days to remove the violations before the ban goes into effect.”

It was not immediately clear what was said in the comments section that was cause for concern at Google.

NBC News Verification Unit Executive Producer Ruaridh Arrow placed the blame for the faulty reporting on Google.

“. @Google backtracked on their original email which stated both publications had been delisted from Google ads – #blacklivesmatter was included in a tweet because the story concerned that movement – this was not an indication of support for it and has now deleted for clarity,” he tweeted.

The Stop Funding Fake News project identified 10 U.S. publications it deemed to have caused falsehoods or demonized the Black Lives Matter movement.

“Fake News and racist narratives can cause real-world harms: dehumanising black people and whipping up fear,” the site reads. “Stop Funding Fake News is fighting back: we’re calling on advertisers to blacklist these 10, U.S-based, racist Fake News sites.”

In addition to Zero Hedge (which was already banned from Google Ads before NBC News flagged it to Google) and the Federalist, the sites listed include American Greatness, Moonbattery, American Thinker, Big League Politics, WND, the Washington Standard, Gateway Pundit, and Breitbart.

The research said a piece by Federalist political editor John Daniel Davidson claimed CNN and New York Times reports were “lying” about white supremacist violence during the George Floyd protests. The project also noted that the Federalist used “black crime” as a tag for its articles.

Zero Hedge was targeted because it claimed Black Lives Matter is “practically a revolutionary operative of the CIA via (George) Soros” and that it is a Soros “Astroturf” campaign for “leftists and their agenda to reshape the fabric of American society.”

“We found that lots of those companies are inadvertently funding through their advertising content that is outright racist in defense of white supremacism and contains conspiracy theories about George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement,” said Imran Ahmed, the CEO of Center for Countering Digital Hate.

Before Google announced that it had not demonetized the Federalist, several high-profile conservative figures shared their outrage, including Sen. Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican. “.@Google finally being honest about their bias – straight up banning conservative outlets,” he tweeted on Tuesday.

Donald Trump Jr., President Trump’s eldest son, said the social media giant was bullied into cracking down on conservative ideas.

“A leftwing activist masquerading as a NBC journalist helped bully @Google into pulling ad revenue from The Federalist because they criticized a political movement they disagree with. Big Tech & the MSM are working together to shutdown all dissent,” he tweeted.

Google has banned various websites from its ad platforms in recent years in an effort to curb online misinformation.

The Black Lives Matter movement returned to national prominence after the May 25 police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, died after a white police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes. Protests across the country have called for an end to systemic racism and police brutality.