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One of the most undercovered stories of this election is how seemingly every political decision @Google makes just so happens to benefit the Trump campaign.
This is just the latest example: https://www.protocol.com/google-coronavirus-ad-ban-democrats">https://www.protocol.com/google-co...
This is just the latest example: https://www.protocol.com/google-coronavirus-ad-ban-democrats">https://www.protocol.com/google-co...
tl;dr on the above: @Google has banned most nongovernmental advertising about coronavirus, which allows the Trump administration to run ads promoting its response to the crisis while denying Democrats the chance to run ads pointing out that his response has been massively inept!
This incredible Priorities spot? @Google currently has banned it from running as an ad on YouTube: https://twitter.com/likebutterfield/status/1242979539845865472">https://twitter.com/likebutte...
This sort of thing is a pattern with @Google:
@Google sold Trump their most precious inventory on Election Day, ensuring that he is the only candidate that visitors to the YouTube homepage will hear from that whole day: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-21/donald-trump-youtube-ads-will-dominate-election-day">https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...
@Google sold Trump their most precious inventory on Election Day, ensuring that he is the only candidate that visitors to the YouTube homepage will hear from that whole day: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-21/donald-trump-youtube-ads-will-dominate-election-day">https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...
You can’t really overstate what a significant move giving Trump the YouTube masthead on Election Day is. @Google is happy to tell you this ad unit is equivalent in impact to a Super Bowl ad, and they’re giving 100% of it to him from polls open to polls close on Election Day!
(and by the way, Trump got the Election Day YouTube masthead through a "random" draw that was conducted with zero transparency over a year out before Election Day 2020 -- the timing of which obviously benefitted the incumbent, no matter how this inventory was supposedly assigned)
Here& #39;s another big one from last year:
@Google rolled out changes to their ads policy last year that make it harder from voters to hear from candidates -- changes which have disproportionately hurt down ballot, and, ahem, non-incumbent candidates: https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/22/tech/democrats-google-ads/index.html">https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/2...
@Google rolled out changes to their ads policy last year that make it harder from voters to hear from candidates -- changes which have disproportionately hurt down ballot, and, ahem, non-incumbent candidates: https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/22/tech/democrats-google-ads/index.html">https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/2...
Bottom line: there are a few pretty easy ways for tech platforms to level their playing fields.
At this point, it does not seem like @Google will be taking many of them this election cycle. It’s time for progressive strategists and journalists to be clear-eyed about that.
At this point, it does not seem like @Google will be taking many of them this election cycle. It’s time for progressive strategists and journalists to be clear-eyed about that.
