Google bans website ZeroHedge from its ad platform over comments on protest articles

Google has banned ZeroHedge, a far-right website that often traffics in conspiracy theories, from its advertising platform over policy violations found in the comments section of stories about recent Black Lives Matter protests.

Google also issued a warning on Tuesday to The Federalist over comments on articles related to recent protests.

A Google spokesperson said in an email on Monday that it demonetized the websites after determining they violated its policies on content related to race.

“We have strict publisher policies that govern the content ads can run on and explicitly prohibit derogatory content that promotes hatred, intolerance, violence or discrimination based on race from monetizing," the spokesperson wrote. "When a page or site violates our policies, we take action. In this case, we’ve removed both sites’ ability to monetize with Google.”

After publication of this story, Google backtracked Tuesday, clarifying that The Federalist had been warned about policy violations but still had time to address them. It now has three days to remove the violations before a ban goes into effect.

On Wednesday morning, Google said The Federalist had removed the comments that violated its policies and that it would take no further action.