It will come as no surprise to Townhall's loyal readers that Big Tech censors have long gone after our truth-telling reporting for doing exactly that — telling the truth — especially when the truth of what's happening in the world around us proves inconvenient to Democrats' leftist narrative.
From COVID origins to the border crisis, Biden's disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan to the cause of inflation, and everything in between, Townhall has been fighting an uphill battle.
That was the topic of a chat between Townhall's own Katie Pavlich and Guy Benson on Guy's Fox News Radio show this week in which they discussed what exactly Google is doing and how it's obstructing the important reporting for which Townhall is known and loved.
"I started to get these reports from one of our colleagues who flags this stuff like an Excel spreadsheet, internally, about certain posts and articles and columns that we publish at Townhall.com that have been — for whatever reason — flagged by Google as 'problematic,' 'misinformation,' 'harmful or misleading information,' they have all these different terms," Guy explained. "And, as a matter of fact, some of my own content has been flagged recently on this front — and when the flag then gets flown, they demonetize the post."
"I just started to have steam coming out of my ears," Guy recalled of seeing how Google was flagging and demonetizing his stories. "I worked hard on those posts, and I really try my very best to be accurate and fair, and to see some algorithm from this tech leviathan just deciding — based on not even reading it — that I was 'dangerous and unreliable' in my content, I took that somewhat personally."
"We used to be in these big fights with Facebook fact-checkers and big social media, Big Tech fact-checkers, who would simply see information that they didn't like — like the lab leak theory during COVID for example — and take it off of their platform," Katie recounted of previous attempts by tech companies and platforms to sideline Townhall's coverage.
But now, Katie continued, "Google will come up with this list of topics like climate change, COVID, vaccines — all kinds of everyday big policy topics that we're covering in Washington, D.C. that are either being discussed through legislation on Capitol Hill or issued through executive order — [and] now there's this algorithm with these ad agencies...and they simply scoop up these terms and automatically ding them as 'unreliable,' 'harmful,' 'not true' — without looking through the actual information in the story to see what it is about."
That means "when we're reporting and quoting people like President Joe Biden or quoting people at the CDC, or health experts, or things that are true, they demonetize it," Katie explained. "That causes problems not just for us, but for news outlets around the country when you rely on ad revenue to be able to support your journalism — which is why you've seen us go to the subscription program called Townhall VIP," she continued. "It allows us to be directly funded and get around this Big Tech algorithm that scoops up all these factual stories that we're simply reporting on — big topics that we're all impacted by — and stripping away the monetization."
"It's a form of censorship for sure," Guy noted. "When we talk about Big Tech and Big Tech censorship this is a very real tangible ongoing example of it."
On the topic of examples, Guy shared some of his recent stories that ended up getting flagged and demonetized by the "tech leviathan" of Google's algorithm.
"I wrote about Dr. Fauci and some of the problems he had been facing and what has been exposed through documents, through emails, that he was aware of if not directing behind the scenes when it came to, for example, the origins of COVID and some of those machinations and distortions," Guy explained. "I said he has some very serious questions to answer now. That post got flagged and demonetized."
"I wrote something about immigration and the border crisis where some migrants planted the flag of a foreign country on Texas soil, and I wrote about why that might have happened," Guy continued. "It was a very balanced, informative, non-crazy — I don't do conspiracy stuff — non-crazy post, and because I guess there was some combination of words that Google has decided is a problem, that post got demonetized. And the list goes on."
Google's practice of using an algorithm to flag and demonetize vast swaths of newsworthy content, Guy said, "is deeply galling" and "a big problem when it comes to just, like, the freedom of information and the ability to access information and for businesses to be viable when they traffic in accurate information. "Google is making that harder for us, plain and simple," he noted.
Katie also noted that Google's actions are "discriminatory because this algorithm is pulling out what they see as controversial topics and then basically burying these stories from ad revenue and from search engines as well. This is not just happening once every now and then, this happens to us every single day," she emphasized of its impact on Townhall's vital coverage.
"This is why we're trying to find ways to get around that," continued Katie. "And I know that people have a hard time with paywalls, and they get frustrated they have to have a subscription. But if you care about being able to get this information out and get around these censorship machines at...Google and other ad agencies that are working online, this is really the way that you have to do that. It's really helpful when we have VIP subscribers understanding that and supporting our work," she noted. "When you subscribe to Townhall VIP, we no longer have to worry, as much, about Google doing something like this to us," Katie reminded.
"By the way, the robots are programmed by somebody," Guy noted of Google's algorithm. "And if you think that some of these big companies are not populated by ideologues who hate our website Townhall.com and some of our other friendly competitors on the right, then you're deluding yourself. The large majority of content at Townhall.com is not behind a paywall," said Guy. "Most of my stuff is not behind a paywall. But, some of it is, including some of my best work I must say myself."
Katie noted that "there are reasons why it is behind the paywall, because it allows you to continue your good work that people are willing to pay for, so we appreciate it so much," she said of Townhall's loyal VIP members.
"If you haven't checked out Townhall.com, my stuff, Katie's stuff, and our colleagues', just go and see what you think and see if you like it," Guy told his listeners. "And if you then feel like this is something you'd like to support and I'm annoyed by what Google is doing to them, feel free to sign up for Townhall VIP. It is reasonably priced and it really helps us do the work that Katie and I have been doing with our friends and colleagues now since 2010."
As Guy and Katie noted, we are not alone in this fight thanks to the direct support of Townhall VIP members who have partnered with us and allow us to continue to our important work regardless of how intense the pressure from the left's big tech thought police becomes.
If you're not already a Townhall VIP member and, as Guy mentioned, annoyed and concerned about what Google is doing, you can become a member today and get 50% off a new annual membership by using the code THOUGHTPOLICE when you sign up today.
With your VIP membership, you’ll be making vital, truthful reporting from Townhall possible for less than 15 cents a day, plus get access to amazing amounts of exclusive VIP content.
You can listen to Katie and Guy's full conversation, starting around the 1hr:19min mark of the episode embedded below:
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