Google accused of censoring conservative websites
GOP senators propose new big tech legislation; reaction and analysis on 'The Five.'
"The Five" co-host Greg Gutfeld said Wednesday that NBC News' apparent push for Google to remove conservative publication The Federalist from the Google Ads platform is an example of how "the woke crowd" operates.
"If you can't win in the field of ideas, you contact companies and report what you believe to be offensive material," Gutfeld said. "The companies don't want the hassle so they operate on a hair-trigger."
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An article published Tuesday by a London-based NBC News reporter, Adele-Momoko Fraser, claimed Google had "banned" The Federalist and ZeroHedge from Google Ads for "pushing unsubstantiated claims" about the Black Lives Matter movement. Google later pushed back, claiming that The Federalist "was never demonetized," and adding, "We worked with them to address issues on their site related to the comments section."
The NBC report claimed that Google was "notified of research conducted by the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a British nonprofit that combats online hate and misinformation ... that 10 U.S-based websites have published what they say are racist articles about the protests, and projected that the websites would make millions of dollars through Google Ads.
The report added that ""Google blocked The Federalist from its advertising platform after the NBC News Verification Unit brought the project to its attention."
Gutfeld said the process has been a "fairly effective means of silencing speech" that the "woke" crowd does not like.
He added that many people argue actions like those from Google aren't technically a "silencing" because the mega-corporation is not a government entity.
"Nobody's telling you what not to say, but the fact is, if your career and livelihood is at the mercy of an intolerant woke activism, then it is silencing speech," he added. "It is harming you."
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"This is actually spreading out and it's really frightening because you can see how the media avoids data and statistics about law enforcement in favor of polling. Remember, polling [isn't] facts. Those are gauging feelings but stats tell you about behavior and we are not hearing about statistics because the media is so cowardly about it."
"Instead we are just stuck in emotion and symbolism and virtue signaling," he said.
Fox News' Joseph Wulfsohn contributed to this report.
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