Google appears to have adopted a “yes, we did it—so what?” attitude after it was busted thwarting an ad tied to a video in favor of former President Donald Trump while hypocritically allowing similar content featuring Vice President Kamala Harris.
Google-owned YoTube admitted to demonetizing an ad launched by popular entrepreneur and motivational speaker Grant Cardone on one of his pro-Trump videos. However, the tech giant gladly approved revenue for the same ad when it appeared on his content featuring Kamala Harris, Fox Business reported on Monday. In remarks to the outlet, Google predictably fell back on the familiar excuse tech platforms often use when accused of censoring Republicans: it was an “error” that had been “resolved weeks ago.”
Cardone, who has millions of followers across several social media accounts, first called out the blatant bias on Instagram and X posted on Sept. 5 and captioned, “Anyone who doesn’t think election interference is real, maybe this will change your mind.” In the clip, he quipped, “Google, you guys are nasty people.”
WHAT A JOKE 😂
— Grant Cardone (@GrantCardone) September 5, 2024
public service announcement - if you run ads featuring Donald Trump they will get taken down, but if you run ads with Kamala Harris… approved !!
Anyone who doesn’t think election interference is real, maybe this will change your mind. pic.twitter.com/9JQSuMQbq7
The censorship when Cardone launched an ad campaign to drive traffic from his eponymous channel—boasting 2.65 million followers—to his new page, 10X Studies. YouTube “immediately” flagged the ad as ineligible for revenue because Cardone’s original channel featured a pro-Trump video that allegedly violated the platform’s policies on campaign-related content.
The flagged video, titled “Donald Trump Predicts NYC Chaos,” featured an image of Trump standing behind an American flag. In response to Google’s ad rejection and to test the platform’s potential bias, Cardone quickly revised the pro-Trump video to focus on Harris, with a new caption reading, “Kamala’s Capital Gain Tax Will Destroy Housing in America.”
Cardone then resubmitted the ad for YouTube’s approval—and what happened next was jaw-dropping. YouTube swiftly greenlit the ad, allowing it to run on the Harris video uninterrupted for nearly two weeks.
A Google spokesperson conceded that both videos “should have been disapproved because the advertiser has not completed our election advertising verification process.”
The spokesperson inexplicably affirmed that the “second ad was initially approved in error and has since been blocked.” Google also mentioned that its “policies are designed to treat all advertisers equally, regardless of political affiliation. Occasionally our systems make mistakes, and we correct them as soon as we spot them."
This is not the first time Google blamed censorship on an error. In June, Google banned the educational non-profit PragerU from its Google Play store amid the release of the documentary Dear Infidels: A Warning to America. In response, the tech giant claimed this was an error. In March 2024, YouTube fixed an inaccurate pro-abortion label on a pro-life video posted by the Alliance Defiance Freedom, and in 2021, cited a “mistake” after censoring the Ron Paul Institute’s channel.
A new Media Research Center study revealed that Google forced Americans searching for the Trump campaign’s website to first navigate through leftist news outlets, prompting the former president to pledge legal action in a potential second administration.
Google’s claims of impartiality are undercut by numerous studies conducted by MRC, which have revealed the tech giant's sordid interference in American elections on behalf of Democrats, including Harris.
Specifically, 19 MRC studies have repeatedly exposed Google’s election-meddling censorship between the 2022 midterm elections and the 2024 general. MRC President Brent Bozell challenged Google CEO Sundar Pichai on March 26 to discredit any of the studies, giving him until April 9 to respond. As of Oct. 2, Pichai has not replied.
Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on hate speech and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us using CensorTrack’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.
