Google temporarily banned a Trump campaign advertisement on Friday, in a repeat of its blatant interference with the 2020 election. The ad, which targeted Black males in rural Georgia and highlighted Biden’s failure to tackle illegal immigration and high inflation, was aimed at Black male voters.
Trump’s Super PAC is running this ad in rural Georgia counties targeting Black men. pic.twitter.com/mcRMkGsqLN
— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) May 3, 2024
BIDEN CAMPAIGN: Hello, I’m with the Biden campaign.
VOTER: Yeah, yeah, I voted for Biden last time.
BIDEN CAMPAIGN: That’s fantastic.
VOTER: Is it? Everything costs more: food, gas, rent.
BIDEN CAMPAIGN: Okay, but Biden’s helping pay rent for “newcomers” to America from around the world.
VOTER: You mean illegal immigrants? I’m struggling to pay my bills, but Biden’s paying rent for illegals? They get handouts and I’m paying for it.
BIDEN CAMPAIGN: But Biden can still count on your vote, right?
VOTER: Things were better before Biden. I’m voting for Trump.
NBC News reporter Andrew Arenge was the first to notice Google’s actions. He documented Google removing the ad.
NEW: This ad has been removed by Google for a “policy violation”. It was live in the Google archive this morning but I just looked and it’s now been removed.
Super PAC spent over $15K targeting it at specific communities near Macon, GA after launching it on April 25th. https://t.co/DQnUHgsUuS pic.twitter.com/AnwHwtzlp0
— Andrew Arenge (@MrArenge) May 3, 2024
Google restored the ad quietly on Saturday.
LATEST: Appears Google has completely reversed their decision from yesterday when they stopped running the Trump Super Pac ads for a policy violation.
All four of the ads highlighted below were flagged in my tweet from yesterday and it appears they’ve all been turned back on. https://t.co/zAWmf8sHew pic.twitter.com/Eywn29A0Ov
— Andrew Arenge (@MrArenge) May 4, 2024
The ad was pulled without explanation. I believe that polls showing Trump’s gains with Black voters, Georgia as a swing state, and Biden’s vulnerability in regards to illegal immigration and fiscal mismanagement played a part.
Google’s behavior is not new. Google employees seemed to have recess during the 2020 presidential election when they pulled Trump ads for implausible and specious reasons.
60 Minutes analyzed the archive to find out more about President Trump’s controversial political ads. Google and YouTube removed over 300 video ads, mostly during the summer months, because they violated company policies. The archive does not specify which policy was violated. Copyright? A lie or extreme inaccuracy? Faulty grammar What about bad punctuation? It’s unclear. Ads that are deemed offensive cannot be screened. The transparency report was very opaque.
Google, just like in 2020 could not say what “policy”, the Trump ad broke other than that it was effective.
