Brandon TurbevilleBrandonTurbeville.com
Activist Post
November 16, 2016
On November 15, U.S News and World Report released an article by Rachel Dicker providing a list of “fake sites” to “avoid at all costs.” On the list, Activist Post was prominently noted as being “fake” or, more accurately to the point of the article, a “propaganda” site.
This article comes shortly after an announcement by Google that it would be prohibiting “fake” and “misrepresentative” sites from using its “Adsense” program. The company stated to Reuters that,
“Moving forward, we will restrict ad serving on pages that misrepresent, misstate, or conceal information about the publisher, the publisher’s content, or the primary purpose of the web property. This policy includes fake news sites, the spokesperson confirmed. Google already prevents its AdSense program from being used by sites that promote violent videos and imagery, pornography, and hate speech.
And, of course, the definition of the Orwellian-named “hate speech,” violence, misrepresentation and “fake news” is all going to be determined by Facebook and Google. War, for instance, is extremely violent but there is a necessity to cover it and even produce images from the battlefield in the process. Police shootings and other forms of violence against citizens is also violent but a necessary issue to cover. “Hate speech” is incredibly subjective and, in 2016, speech has come to be labeled as “hate” even when it merely respectfully disagreed with a protected identity group.
