Posted on 07/25/2019 11:59:53 AM PDT by TigerClaws
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii), a 2020 presidential contender, is suing Google over claims that the tech behemoth violated her right to "free speech."
In a federal complaint filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, Gabbard alleged Google censored her presidential campaign when it suspended their advertising account for several hours last month.
A Google spokeswoman pushed back on Gabbard's claims in a statement to The Hill, attributing the brief suspension to sudden "large spending changes" that set off Google's automated systems.
"We have automated systems that flag unusual activity on all advertiser accounts – including large spending changes – in order to prevent fraud and protect our customers," the spokeswoman said.
"In this case, our system triggered a suspension and the account was reinstated shortly thereafter."
Gabbard's lawsuit marks the first time a presidential contender has sued a large technology company over such claims.
The Hawaii Democrat's principal campaign committee, Tulsi Now Inc., is suing Google, accusing it of violating her First Amendment rights along with a litany of violations under California law.
"With this lawsuit, Tulsi seeks to stop Google from further intermeddling in the 2020 United States Presidential Election," the complaint reads.
Gabbard's lawsuit reflects a narrative typically espoused by Republicans, many of whom have spent years claiming that the top tech companies in the world routinely censor their perspectives. President Trump has long accused the companies of discriminating against himself and other Republicans, and last month held a "social media summit" dedicated explicitly to the issue.
Few Democrats have gotten behind the charges, mostly passing them off as a conservative talking point and pointing out there is little evidence beyond individual anecdotes to substantiate the claims.
In a statement, Gabbard's campaign pointed out that the suspension of her advertising account came shortly after the first debate last month, during which Gabbard was one of the most-searched Democrats.
"In the hours following the 1st debate, while millions of Americans searched for info about Tulsi, Google suspended her search ad account w/o explanation," the campaign said. "It is vital to our democracy that big tech companies can’t affect the outcome of elections."
Gabbard, a long-shot candidate who regularly polls around 1 percent, has long staked out positions that put her at odds with most of the Democratic party.
The complaint also alleges that Google did not offer adequate explanations for her advertising account's suspension during the hours between June 27 and 28.
"For hours, as millions of Americans searched Google for information about Tulsi, and as Tulsi was trying, through Google, to speak to them, her Google Ads account was arbitrarily and forcibly taken offline," it reads. "Throughout this period, the Campaign worked frantically to gather more information about the suspension."
"In response, the Campaign got opacity and an inconsistent series of answers from Google," it states.
Gabbard's lawsuit marks the first time a presidential contender has sued a large technology company over such claims.
The Hawaii Democrat's principal campaign committee, Tulsi Now Inc., is suing Google, accusing it of violating her First Amendment rights along with a litany of violations under California law.
"With this lawsuit, Tulsi seeks to stop Google from further intermeddling in the 2020 United States Presidential Election," the complaint reads.
Gabbard's lawsuit reflects a narrative typically espoused by Republicans, many of whom have spent years claiming that the top tech companies in the world routinely censor their perspectives. President Trump has long accused the companies of discriminating against himself and other Republicans, and last month held a "social media summit" dedicated explicitly to the issue.
Few Democrats have gotten behind the charges, mostly passing them off as a conservative talking point and pointing out there is little evidence beyond individual anecdotes to substantiate the claims.
In a statement, Gabbard's campaign pointed out that the suspension of her advertising account came shortly after the first debate last month, during which Gabbard was one of the most-searched Democrats.
"In the hours following the 1st debate, while millions of Americans searched for info about Tulsi, Google suspended her search ad account w/o explanation," the campaign said. "It is vital to our democracy that big tech companies can’t affect the outcome of elections."
Gabbard, a long-shot candidate who regularly polls around 1 percent, has long staked out positions that put her at odds with most of the Democratic party.
The complaint also alleges that Google did not offer adequate explanations for her advertising account's suspension during the hours between June 27 and 28.
"For hours, as millions of Americans searched Google for information about Tulsi, and as Tulsi was trying, through Google, to speak to them, her Google Ads account was arbitrarily and forcibly taken offline," it reads. "Throughout this period, the Campaign worked frantically to gather more information about the suspension."
"In response, the Campaign got opacity and an inconsistent series of answers from Google," it states.
Copy of the lawsuit is here:
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6214131-031131096057.html
Interesting they (google) allegedly put Gabbard’s email into the Spam folders at a high rate as compared to other candidates. Gabbard was picked as winning the first Dem debate. Dems don’t like her because she’s not super leftist.
Uhhhhhh....Welcome to our world.
This is Google “doing something” just like they said they would do in the Project Veritas videos...which Gabbard should use for evidence to support her claims.
Of all things!
1) It is only a matter of time before these leftist thought and language police start to turn and eat their own.
2) Advertising is largely (but not entirely) protected 1A speech.
3) But private companies are under no obligation to run anyone’s particular ads. The 1A protects infringement from the government, not from Google.
I am a little sympathetic to the broad claim but not in this case. Google, FB, TWTR and the others take large amounts of government money and profit by the content of their users. For those reasons they should not be able to censor speech that isn’t overtly criminal (e.g. some porn, direct incitement to violence) anymore than a University that accepts government money can.
But this is not speech, this is advertising. They absolutely have the right to refuse to run her ads for any reason.
Seems more like a breach of contract but will see what they come up with. Obviously, the Dem powers that be hate her and don’t want her moving up.
Remember, 1.6-2 million votes were allegedly flipped by Google in the last election. How’s that for election interference? Now we are seeing how.
As I understand it, sites like google and twitter have all kinds of exemptions as they are ‘public forums’ and not editors of content. They clearly are editing content and displaying political bias against conservatives. Should have whatever exemptions they have stripped.
How are they not paying taxes? Amazon and Google don’t pay a dime in taxes. How is that possible?
These tech and social media firms need to be crushed like the trust busting of the past.
On the one hand, I think it benefits the Republicans, short term, that Google is driving the Democrat primary voters to the Socialist candidates.
On the other hand, the MSM will never take this problem seriously until it starts to effect somebody they care about. Tulsi Gabbard may be that somebody.
If it is a public forum, she’s right.
If it’s a private platform, she’s wrong.
It needs to be classified one way or the other. Currently it’s public when convenient and private when convenient. Same with the other heavy hitters.
How interesting. Conservatives and Libertarians are constantly censored and demonetized, but a Democrat can’t handle three hours. My God. Talk about being a hypocrite.
Great! Establish a legal precedent.
But... Michael Moore said just yesterday that Democrats are not street fighters.
The Communications Decency Act of 1996, Section 230, requires such to operate as “open platforms” that do not engage in publishing/editing of content, in exchange for Federal protection from content liability, which protection has helped them thrive from their inception.
Furthermore, these are not private companies; they are publicly-traded corporations that are regulated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission [SEC]. Operating in the private sector does not equal being a private company. (IPO = Initial Public Offering.)
“I am a little sympathetic to the broad claim but not in this case.”
If you have a spare moment, you might want to read her lawsuit complaint. I’d be interested whether you characterize her claims - and your response - in the same way:
As for how they don't pay taxes - this is more complicated than I can thoroughly explain (and more complicated than I actually know) but the gist of it is something they called a "dutch sandwich" tax maneuver. They set up several subsidiaries, one of which is in Ireland because Ireland charges no tax on royalties. One of them is in the Dutch Antilles and one of them in Holland I think. Each strategically located for the tax benefits.
They assign the marketing rights to their algorithms and search results to the Irish subsidiary. They sell all their ads through and collect all (or, a huge chunk) of their revenues through the Dutch company, which then turns around and pays 99% of those revenues as royalty to the Irish company and then pass 99% of that money that through to the Dutch Antilles tax haven. So the money flows from Dutch-Ireland-Dutch, hence the "Dutch Sandwich". So, revenues flowing into the first Dutch subsidiary is offset by the costs and expenses of licensing the algorithms from the Irish company. The Irish company declares it all as Royalty income and it is tax exempt. Then they park it in the Dutch Antilles tax haven - something like this. So they make $40 billion dollars and pay no taxes.
This loophole is now closed to anyone who wants to try it again, but most of the big tech companies structured this way (or something along those lines) 20 odd years ago and it still protects them. Which is one of the many signs of how corrupt and corrupting and influential these companies are. If you wanted to compete with Google, you are at a huge disadvantage already - and worse, they will always get a massive tax break you will never get so you will always have lower profit to compete with them. They have basically maneuvered the government into boxing out their competitors - and this is what all major industries are attempting to do in various ways - make it harder for any upstarts to compete with the establishment. It is wrong, and our government is actively encouraging it (sometimes knowingly, sometimes incidentally).
Only because you asked... LOL. Otherwise I don’t really care what Gabbard has to say at this moment. Not that I would personally censor her, I am open to all good ideas from anyone. But I am personally offended by the Democrats and today’s left right now. They are diabolically manipulative in everything they do. As a Congresswoman she has had many years to try to fix the many problems with interference by Google and big tech. As a Democrat she is in league with all these PC language police and thought police. As a politician she is complicit in enabling big tech’s many abuses. Maybe I judge her unfairly, I admit I don’t know much about her. But it seems to me that she finds her “Free Speech” principles only after she is personally injured by the tech tyranny. Like I said in my first point it was only a matter of time until the left starts to eat their own - most of them are too stupid to realize how but history is replete with examples of how tyranny plays out over time. Maybe the left will finally start to push back hard on the far left.
OK so I read through the first several pages. Not that I disagree with the thrust, as you quoted I am sympathetic to the claim that Google is a monstrous manipulator of speech, of thought, of content and of elections.
But the 1st Amendment doesn’t protect us from Google. It protects us from Government. Google is a private platform. Technically it is free to decline ads from anyone. Whether they should be allowed to is another question. I would break these into different baskets 1) Ads 2) Content 3) Search Results. For 2 and 3, I think it needs to be very highly regulated for non-interference. Not that it needs to be cumbersome regulation - just effective regulation. Stop juking the results. Stop censoring and demonetizing and deplatforming (and this for all the tech companies). They need to be regulated like utilities - 100% politically neutral.
As for Ads, I don’t think they have any legal obligation to run anybody’s ads. But since you made me rethink this, maybe I am mistaken. She does have a point, because if Ad results are a huge driver of eyeballs, content and search results then denying her Ad is troublesome interference. I don’t know how it rises to a 1st Amendment question though. Honestly think if this is the sole basis of her claim it will be tossed out of court. But I admit she has a point I hadn’t considered until reading it. It is a problem that Congress has to address.
But, Ads is a tougher decision than search and content. Does this mean they have to run Ads for the KKK? For porn? For cigarettes and alcohol? I’m not sure where you draw this line. Maybe there is a simpler solution.
OK so I read through the first several pages
Read all the way. She talks about how google aided hillary v Trump
Also, she cites not just the first amendment, but a California statute against businesses discriminating in granting access to their premises and services. Whether she wins on First Amendment or not, she’s suing in California and the statutory claim is a different argument.
Well she’s got her claims. And sure, it could be that they sabotaged her because of her views about them. But this is also a little self-serving. It is her complaint. Have they sabotaged Elizabeth Warren who is actually buying giant “break up big tech” billboards?
I read Google’s defense in the news article posted above. And then I read in her complaint something to the effect of “after the debate, searches for Gabbard skyrocketed”.
Now if you know how it works - and I have run Google Adwords campaigns - you get charged for every click. And they are liable for “click fraud” from their advertisers. Google says her account was stopped because of the spike in clicks. In a way, her complaint dovetails with their defense. She claims her searches spiked. That means her expense account was getting unusual charge activity. We know the reason why, her performance in the debate drove unusual traffic.
My guess is that it was an automated feature to prevent click fraud and not an intentional act of sabotage. But that’s just my guess I don’t know. Normally, an advertiser puts in a budget per click and budget per day but I didn’t see mention of this so I guess that she had a very high budget and wasn’t at risk of running over her daily spending limit.
I don’t know the truth. $50 million seems a bit rich for a $400,000 a year job :-). It was the first of a dozen debates. They may have done some damage to her momentum. Whether it was deliberate or not I guess we will never find out, I think this will get settled via means other than a trial.
Whether it was deliberate or not I guess we will never find out
Litigation with discovery could help. I wouldn’t be so confident that Gabbard will accept a settlement and forego the opportunity to depose people at Google.
Yes, which is why I said I think it would settle. But you could be right. Maybe she has other motives and this gave her the opening she needed to pursue them.
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