Alphabet's YouTube and Google Took Down More Than 300 Trump Ads

For every Trump campaign ad Alphabet Inc GOOGL refuses to take down, there is plenty that it has, in fact, removed for violating its policies, CBS’s 60 minutes reported on Sunday.

What Happened

The company’s two vital subsidiaries Google and YouTube removed more than 300 ads from President Donald Trump’s campaign on their platforms mainly over the summer, 60 minutes found by reviewing the archives of the company’s transparency reports.

The documents say that the ads were removed for violating the company’s policy, but don’t specify which policies were violated by the ads. 

The news magazine’s probe of the archive was prompted by an interview it did with YouTube chief executive officer Susan Wojcicki.

Wojcicki dodged questions on whether any of Trump campaign ads were removed from the platform but asked the publication to look into its transparency report for details. 

The video streaming giant courted controversy when it — along with other social media companies — refused to remove a Trump campaign ad that made false claims about another presidential candidate Joe Biden, Quartz reported in November.

The CEO also said that there is no political discrimination on the platform as YouTube’s algorithm doesn’t have any “concept of understanding what’s a Democrat, what’s a Republican.”

“No matter who you are, we are trying to enforce our policies in a consistent way for everybody," Wojcicki told 60 minutes.

Why It Matters

Social media giants are facing increased pressure to monitor political ads on their platforms, and all companies are responding in their own way.

Twitter Inc TWTR banned a majority of political ads on its platform earlier in November. 

Google followed by restricting audience targeting for political ads on its platform but fell shy of a ban.

Facebook Inc FB has resisted calls for any restrictions on political ads on its platform, including fact-checking. The company’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, has cited ensuring freedom of speech and expression as the motive of the company’s policy.

Posted In: NewsPoliticsTechMediaGeneralAlphabetCBSDonald TrumpFacebookGoogletwitterYouTube
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