A friend of mine who is in radio advertising tells me that radio stations do not have the ability to refuse political ads. During an election season, a station must air all ads that a political campaign pays for. Evidently this is the result of the fact that radio stations are controlled by the Federal Communications Commission. Unfortunately the new media is very loosely controlled by anything. This is a very mixed blessing. I don’t want the government telling me that I have to accept political ads on my blog whether or not I agree with the ads. However, the censorship of conservative speech that is going on at YouTube, Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc., is not acceptable.<\/p>\n
Breitbart<\/a> is reporting today that according to a report<\/a> by 60 minutes more<\/em> than 300 of President Donald Trump\u2019s political ads have taken down by Google and its video platform YouTube, mostly over the summer.<\/p>\n The article reports:<\/p>\n The CBS reporters were unable to find specific reasons for the mass takedowns of Trump ads, a common problem with social media companies, which are often reluctant to explain precisely why a ban or other act of censorship has happened. \u201cWe found very little transparency in the transparency report,\u201d concluded 60 Minutes<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n The article includes the following quote from CBS News:<\/p>\n 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl asked Wojcicki, \u201cHave you taken down any of President Trump\u2019s ads at all?\u201d YouTube\u2019s CEO responded, \u201cThere are ads of President Trump that were not approved to run on Google or YouTube.\u201d When pressed for an example, Wojcicki added, \u201cWell, they\u2019re available in our transparency report.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n In response to concerns raised after the 2016 election cycle, Google and YouTube, like Facebook, keep a searchable archive of political ads that have run on the site.<\/strong><\/p>\n 60 Minutes reviewed the archive to learn more about President Trump\u2019s problematic political ads. We found that over 300 video ads were taken down by Google and YouTube, mostly over the summer, for violating company policy. But the archive doesn\u2019t detail what policy was violated. Was it copyright violation? A lie or extreme inaccuracy? Faulty grammar? Bad punctuation? It\u2019s unclear. The ads determined to be offending are not available to be screened. We found very little transparency in the transparency report.\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n We are coming into a very important election season. American voters need to hear both sides of every campaign. We already know that the mainstream media is extremely biased. How are people supposed to get information when free speech is being suppressed?<\/p>\n A friend of mine who is in radio advertising tells me that radio stations do not have the ability to refuse political ads. During an election season, a station must air all ads that a political campaign pays for. Evidently … Continue reading