Althouse has had enough with google
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Though I not always agree with her, Ann Althouse is one of the most reasonable, smart, educated bloggers out there.
She's had it with google.
https://althouse.blogspot.com/2020/10/ive-discontinued-google-adsense-ads.html
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I've discontinued Google AdSense ads.
Email received today from Google was the last straw for me:In the last 24 hours:
New violations were detected. As a result, ad serving has been restricted or disabled on pages where these violations of the AdSense Program Policies were found. To resolve the issues, you can either remove the violating content and request a review, or remove the ad code from the violating pages.
4 pages were reviewed at your request and found to be non-compliant with our policies at the time of the review. Ad serving continues to be restricted or disabled on those pages.
I'm tired of checking to see what's supposedly a violation. I get so many of these and they're often posts that are nothing but a quote from a commentator in the NYT. But to see that the review didn't okay these pages... it's just mind-bending. I can't waste my energy dealing with this bullshit. In every case, I'm told that I've violated their policy with "Dangerous or derogatory content," which I find insulting. Here are recent posts that have been found in violation of that policy — even after review:"In a disturbing number of the recent cases of the police being called on black people for doing everyday, mundane things, the calls have been initiated by white women" — the post title is a quote from NYT columnist Charles Blow and the post is only a quote from Blow!
"'Take the Shutdown Skeptics Seriously/This is not a straightforward battle between a pro-human and a pro-economy camp; — by Conor Friedersdorf in The Atlantic" — a post that quotes The Atlantic. I say: "Now, there's the kind of title that calls out to me. Moderate, promising to look at both sides. It's the second-most "popular" article right now at The Atlantic. The first is: 'The Coronavirus Was an Emergency Until Trump Found Out Who Was Dying/The pandemic has exposed the bitter terms of our racial contract, which deems certain lives of greater value than others' by Adam Serwer, which is the sort of evil pot-stirring I loathe. I won't do a link for that one. You can find it yourself if you want. I don't want to reward that sort of thing."
"Flipping the pride" — a post showing gay men are appropriating the name "Proud Boys" for themselves. It's just a presumably gay guy dancing in a rainbow outfit and wig. This is a pro-gay post!>
"If Trump and Pence both get very sick, it’s not clear who would be president/President Pelosi? Invoking the Succession Act would lead to chaos" — the post title is a headline from an article by lawprof Sanford V. Levinson, which I proceed to discuss!How did these articles get flagged? By robots or by opponents of this blog? What kind of review does Google have that would reinforce the idea that this is "Dangerous or derogatory content"?! Review by robots or by opponents of this blog? I can't imagine an unbiased human being finding all — or any — of these posts to have "Dangerous or derogatory content." It could be that I'm getting flagged for crap in the comments....
I'm not dealing with it any more. So enjoy ad-free Althouse.