Google withdrew ads from populist British news website Politicalite last week, over an article about Marine Le Pen. Online ad platform Taboola followed, accusing the site of violating its Acceptable Use policy.
Politicalite was founded in 2017 by British conservative Jordan James. Its deputy editor is Darrell Goodliffe, who is also editor-in-chief of the UKIP-supporting blog Kipper Central. Since its founding, Politicalite has grown its readership to over 500,000 readers a month.
Google’s ad team informed Politicalite that their reposting of an article from partner website Voice of Europe about French right-winger Marine Le Pen violated its policies, although the tech giant would not explain precisely how. After Politicalite removed the article and filed an appeal, Google continued to refuse ad service to the website.
A Google spokesman refused to tell Breitbart News the specific policy that Politicalite violated, or why service had not been restored following the site’s voluntary takedown of the article.
“Our publisher policies govern where and how Google ads may be placed on a publisher’s site.” said the spokesman. “We don’t comment on individual sites, but we enforce our policies vigorously and regularly review sites to ensure compliance. We encourage publishers to appeal any decisions they disagree with.”
Earlier this month, Breitbart Tech exclusively reported on efforts within Google to remove ad service from Breitbart News. Members of Google’s advertising team trawled Breitbart’s comments section looking for examples of “hate speech” with which to justify a denial of service.
The same cabal of left-wing Google employees also directed the tech giant’s advertising clients to the Twitter feed of Sleeping Giants, a far-left organization dedicated to attacking the ad revenue of conservative and populist websites by spreading smears to their advertising partners.
Google is by far the largest player in online advertising, with over 36.2 percent of the digital ads market in 2018. Its closest competitor, Facebook, has 19.3 percent.
Politicalite says that it has lost 70 percent of its income due to Google’s denial of service.
Following Google’s decision, online ad platform Taboola also withdrew service from Politicalite, accusing the site’s content of violating its user agreement.
“Specifically, content which is, or which may reasonably be considered abusive, threatening, harmful, vulgar, possibly capable of inciting racial hatred, discriminator (racially, ethnically, or otherwise) (As Taboola determines in its sole discretion) is not permitted on our network,” a Taboola representative told Politicalite. “Accordingly, we will be removing our Widget from your Website and will no longer be providing our Service to you.”
British left-wingers have accused Politicalite of being “far-right,” but founder Jordan James denies the allegation.
“We deplore the far right and Neo-Nazi skinheads” James wrote in November. “We support Brexit, the left behind, the forgotten, the abused girls, LGBT people, Gay Marriage, Controlled Immigration, what we do not agree with is a religion that inherently anti-Feminist against women, and is also homophobic.”
Politicalite has accused Google of capitulating to pressure from the British government, which is reportedly concerned about the growth of “hyper-partisan” and “right-wing populist” websites.
Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News. You can follow him on Twitter, Gab.ai and add him on Facebook. Email tips and suggestions to allumbokhari@protonmail.com.
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