Google Vs. the World

I explained in detail why PJ Media and many other sites have microtransactions of various kinds in a post-iteration a few days ago. It boils down to this: blogs cost money, and the most popular and effective ways to pay for them are through either marketing or memberships. PJ Media tries to keep the collection and just publishes about one-third of our articles behind the paywall, which is actually very liberal when compared to websites like National Review Online, which I detest using the word for.

However, one of the reasons we even have a VIP system is that conventional website ads are generally chancy. We’ve managed to survive without having too many papers demonetized, but it’s been a challenge and has affected many of our editorial guidelines in typically small ways, like all the d*mn *st*r*sks, but there are some topics about which we’ve been timid. &nbsp,

As I explained, monetisation hits us where we live. Some subjects are exclusive to VIP reports. Additionally, there are some issues we have written that Facebook has covered that have been hidden and completely deleted, most notably Hunter Biden’s notebook and extensive COVID policy.

The truth is that despite all of this, Google is very adept at negotiating advertising, so it’s a difficult business decision to try and get another way.

There are themes on YouTube that you can be instantly and peremptorily demonetized or even have your route fully deleted, usually for less-than-obvious grounds, making things even worse. This is obviously true for Google, which is of course owned by Google. &nbsp,

Well, okay, a lot of times they are obvious reasons, like channels that approve of guns, and guns are scary.

Things just might be changing. As we reported yesterday, Meta, the parent company of Facebook, announced a pretty radical change in policies. They won’t be using “independent fact-checkers” like NewsGuard, Politico, Poynter, and Snopes to identify “misinformation”. Instead, they’ll implement a system of Community Notes that will be based on the one that X has been using for a while. Anyone who has read conservative media will be familiar with their explanation: those “independent” fact-checkers have largely consistently marched to the liberal drum major. &nbsp,

With Trump in place, Zuckerberg claims that there is an opportunity to return to a more open-source free-speech model. Some people are very cynical about this, and they have good reason to believe that Facebook didn’t seem to be taking the hymn book seriously when Zuckerberg was preaching the free speech sermon years ago. On the other hand, we now know from the Twitter files and other sources that the federal government was trying to persuade them with a rather heavy” Nice business you’ve got here” hand. Perhaps Zuckerberg didn’t like it but lacks the same level of fervor as Elon Musk does.

You have to admit, whatever you make of his positions, it’s amazing Musk doesn’t walk bowlegged.

This places Google/Alphabet in a uncomfortable position right now. They might as well disregard X for good and assume Musk couldn’t win. ( Think of all the individuals who argued that X-née-Twitter would fail and that Musk would lose all of his a**. )

But now? Facebook is still a big player, add in Instagram, and it’s even more so. And there have been promises that Rumble, which is really YouTube’s only major competitor, will now get equal treatment on Facebook.

Not long after the Civil War, my grandfather told me a tale about when he was young and was employed as a mule skinner on Georgian road crews. He said that he used to carry a length of two-by-four, and if a mule was not being cooperative, he would hit the mule right between the ears with the two-by-four, after which the mule would fall in line. He claimed that the lesson was that mules had a reputation for being stubborn, but that you really had to get their attention.

It may be that with Trump, Musk, and Zuckerberg falling in on the free-speech train, they will finally have Google’s attention.

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