UK companies, including BBC, Channel 4',banks supermarketspull ads on Google

[IshbelRobertson]

For years, Google/Youtube has refused to censor where paid ads appear, resulting in many ads actually contributing funds to terrorist organisations, neo-nazi groups, anti-semitic groups, homophobic groups, etc. In the case of the BBC, the funding comes via our License fees.

Now a raft of companies here have pulled ads until Google ACTUALLY address this issue. That's the only way to do it, hit their profits!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-39325916

[nswef]

Impressive!

[IshbelRobertson]

Their arrogance knew no bounds. Sanctions might.

[catherine]

Their arrogance knew no bounds. Sanctions might.

Absolutely. Good for them. Profit should not be the sole arbiter.

[bae]

Absolutely. Good for them. Profit should not be the sole arbiter.

My understanding is that many social media sites shy away from doing much in the way of editing/content control because they wished to maintain their common-carrier protection under the Communications Decency Act from responsibility for 3rd-party-generated content. Too much editorial control and they might be reckoned "publishers".

[catherine]

My understanding is that many social media sites shy away from doing much in the way of editing/content control because they wished to maintain their common-carrier protection under the Communications Decency Act from responsibility for 3rd-party-generated content. Too much editorial control and they might be reckoned "publishers".

Shoot, bae, as usual, you drive me to the very site Ishbel is talking about to figure out what the h*ll you're talking about.

[IshbelRobertson]

I still maintain their arrogance trumps morality.

[ToomuchStuff]

This is always an issue when dealing with multiple companies and trying to deal with laws and such in them. What one calls a terrorist organization, could be a freedom group in another. (think of the two Korea's for example)
Are these groups something that could be added to a national firewall? Something how things we feel are fine, China filters at the trunk lines coming in.

[bae]

Are these groups something that could be added to a national firewall? Something how things we feel are fine, China filters at the trunk lines coming in.

A national firewall... That's such an amazingly horrid idea.

Years ago, I worked at a company that made the first real proxy cache servers for the Internet. The main design purpose was to make the slower links of the era more efficient - if you requested the NYTimes web site in the morning, when your neighbor requested it several minutes later it was already cached locally in your neighborhood, and the wee pipes leading out to the scary big Internet wouldn't be so clogged by repeated requests for the same information.

At that time, there were entire countries that ran all their traffic through our devices, because they had very poor connectivity into their nation from the outside world.

The devices were transparent to the end-users, and could be used to monitor traffic, redirect requests to elsewhere, blacklist sites, replace content, and all sorts of handy features.

Some of the more repressive governments on earth wanted us to add features that would have allowed them to collect data on individual users, data that in our minds would clearly have been used to select who got to be taken out and shot. So we refused to implement those requests.

The whole concept of using the technology to significantly change the content people viewed, or to inform on their viewing habits, seemed a poor road to go down to me. Handily, the same proxy technology can be used to sneak around national firewalls and blacklists, and we released some free software versions of the technology that would run on Linux, and there are zillions of copies out there running in the wild...

[IshbelRobertson]

Islamist terrorists' rants on the same page as the ad for a British Jewish-owned business is one example. The Beheader-poster is drawing funds from the advertiser via Google. The Head of Google Europe tried to pooh pooh the companies' complaints by saying the sums paid to the Jihadi or KKK apologists (as examples) could be measured in the pence rather than pounds. Outrageous.

More companies are pulling ads.

[IshbelRobertson]

Bae
i think the UK companies just want to ensure that Google ensure that their ads are not randomly placed in the same area the hate preachers. Surely that shouldn't be beyond them to so do? I suspect it might actually cost these global firms cash.....

[ToomuchStuff]

A national firewall... That's such an amazingly horrid idea.
I don't disagree, but it has been done.
The devices were transparent to the end-users, and could be used to monitor traffic, redirect requests to elsewhere, blacklist sites, replace content, and all sorts of handy features.

Some of the more repressive governments on earth wanted us to add features that would have allowed them to collect data on individual users, data that in our minds would clearly have been used to select who got to be taken out and shot. So we refused to implement those requests.

The whole concept of using the technology to significantly change the content people viewed, or to inform on their viewing habits, seemed a poor road to go down to me. Handily, the same proxy technology can be used to sneak around national firewalls and blacklists, and we released some free software versions of the technology that would run on Linux, and there are zillions of copies out there running in the wild...

While you and I agree it is a bad idea, then you have governments, in conjunction with private business's that collect all that data, and then mine it, after the fact.
And while you didn't implement it, I don't doubt with all the lower level code in things (processor id's, etc), a government could split it up and develop it based on that hidden code, in the name of national security.