Earlier this month, we shared a number of RedState stories that had been demonetized by Google for allegedly having “dangerous or derogatory” content, but which were really just politically incorrect. Those included coverage of Riley Gaines testifying in Congress about what a woman is and about the lawyer in Portland who warned the jury in the Andy Ngo civil trial, “I am Antifa.”
No, what’s dangerous is ignoring the threat that people like “Lia” Thomas pose, who are hellbent on destroying womanhood. What’s dangerous is an attorney using her platform to threaten jurors and bully them into returning a particular verdict. It isn’t “derogatory” to call out a man who wants to walk naked through a female locker room almost every day of the week and force women to observe his junk as the predator he is.
If I wrote the paragraph above in any normal RedState story, Google would demonetize it – turn off any ad service to the piece – by labeling it dangerous or derogatory. When that happens, even if a million people view the story, RedState earns nothing for it. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that that’s not a sustainable business model.
But it’s not just coverage of real women fighting back against the radical trans agenda, or coverage outing Antifa bullies that’s being censored, and it’s not just our current coverage they’re targeting. Over the last few weeks RedState stories as far back as 2021 have been flagged as “dangerous or derogatory” and a story from 2019 was flagged as having “unreliable or harmful claims.” The headline of that piece: “Watch: John Stossel Destroys Climate Change Myths in Terrific Video.” While having four-year-old stories demonetized isn’t going to directly hurt our bottom line today, the problem is that every time Google does this our Quality Score takes a hit, and the lower the quality score, the lower the quality of ads served on our site. Lower quality ads equals lower revenue to RedState. So, over time those hits add up and impact what we’re able to pay writers for their contributions and heavily impact our ability to fund the investigative journalism we’re known for.
Most infuriating is the story targeted by Google just yesterday for having “dangerous or derogatory claims.” This one was written by Brandon Morse and titled, “Update: The Gadsden Kid Is Undefeated, Has His School Running for the Hills.” I’d guess that the vast majority of our readers have heard of the story either from reading about it here or seeing TV coverage, but it’s about a 12-year-old Colorado Springs boy who was going to be kicked out of school unless he took a Gadsden flag patch off of his backpack. Administrators falsely claimed that the flag had its roots in slavery, and Jaiden and his mom declined the school’s request that he remove the patch.
For those asking for an update:
– Jaiden decided to go back to school today. With his patch will in place. He said he’d do a sit-in if necessary to protest.
– Two law firms have stepped forward to assist as necessary to fight the viewpoint discrimination.
– Lots of media… pic.twitter.com/lEVH6XiLDm
— Connor Boyack 📚 (@cboyack) August 29, 2023
In this update, Morse wrote:
Jaiden remains undeterred and has decided he’s going to walk back into the school with his bag and patch still attached. Jaiden says he will refuse to remove the patch and will conduct a school sit-in if it comes down to it.
According to Connor Boyack, who first reported on this story, two law firms have now offered to assist Jaiden and his family if it comes down to lawfare, and will fight this clear discrimination against Jaiden and his beliefs. The story has also reached Colorado Governor Jared Polis who posted about the story seemingly taking Jaiden’s side but there has been no word on Polis actually doing anything about it.
Hmm, what’s dangerous or derogatory about that? Or maybe it’s this part?
The Vanguard School’s strategy seems to be to hunker down, avoid the parents, and come up with something that might assuage the nation’s anger, but the likelihood that parents are just going to let this go isn’t high.
The school has demonstrated a deep problem within America’s education system, spanning from public to private. Activists posing as educators have infiltrated America’s school system so deeply that parents can’t trust any of these institutions. Too many incidents have popped up and continue to pop up as these radical activists turn these schools into indoctrination centers more than actual schools.
With every story, the anger grows, groups are formed, and changes are forced on the system by angry parents.
The Vanguard School better buckle up. It’s in for a wild ride.
Hmm, still not dangerous or derogatory, unless it’s dangerous to expose what “activists posing as educators” are doing.
Fortunately, we have a way to fight back – our RedState VIP program. Our VIP articles are behind the paywall, which means they can’t be flagged by Google with flimsy claims of containing dangerous or derogatory content or “unreliable” claims. That VIP content is funded by our VIP members, but it also helps with our overall expense of running the site, funding investigative journalism projects, and paying our writers, who are also being hit by Bidenomics. Our VIP program is also a great value for you, the reader. You get an ad-free experience, access to exclusive VIP content, access to our comments section where you can interact with like-minded people and with our contributors, and the satisfaction of knowing that you are helping fund resistance to Big Tech censors. WIth our VIP Gold membership you get the same access at our Townhall Media sister sites as well: Townhall, PJ Media, Twitchy, Bearing Arms, and Hot Air. If you’re not already a part of RedState VIP (and huge thanks to those of you who are), you can join today with discount code CENSORSHIP for 50 percent off an annual membersihp.
