{"id":192177,"date":"2019-07-26T08:03:19","date_gmt":"2019-07-26T08:03:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=192177"},"modified":"2019-07-29T06:43:34","modified_gmt":"2019-07-29T06:43:34","slug":"tulsi-gabbard-sues-google-for-election-meddling-over-blocked-campaign-ads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=192177","title":{"rendered":"Tulsi Gabbard sues Google for \u2018election meddling\u2019 over blocked campaign ads"},"content":{"rendered":"

RT \u2013 July 25, 2019<\/h1>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Google is already interfering in the 2020 US presidential election, Democratic candidate Tulsi Gabbard claims \u2013 and she\u2019s suing the search behemoth for blocking her campaign ads from appearing after the first primary debate.<\/span><\/p>\n

Google inexplicably suspended Gabbard\u2019s campaign advertising account for the crucial six hours following the first Democratic primary debate last month, a lawsuit<\/a><\/strong><\/span> filed by her campaign on Thursday alleges \u2013 a period in which hers was the most-searched name of all the candidates on the crowded stage. Google didn\u2019t just violate her First Amendment rights by silencing her, the suit charges \u2013 it maliciously meddled with the democratic process.<\/span><\/p>\n

“Google could unilaterally and decisively end a presidential candidate\u2019s bid for office if it chose to<\/strong><\/em>.”<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The search giant violated the Gabbard campaign\u2019s federal and state rights to free speech, as well as a handful of commercial anti-discrimination laws, by pulling the ads without explanation, preventing her from reaching millions of voters with her message, campaign organization Tulsi Now claims in the suit, filed in the Central District of California. They\u2019re seeking \u201cdeclaratory and injunctive relief against Google for its illegal behavior<\/em>,\u201d plus \u201cno less than $50 million<\/em>\u201d in damages, explaining that while Gabbard may have missed out on \u201cpotentially millions<\/em>\u201d in donations, the \u201congoing threat of targeted intermeddling<\/em>\u201d in the upcoming election is more pressing.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cGoogle controls the ability to be heard by a substantial portion of the country, and the world, on the Internet.\u201d<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cGoogle obfuscated and dissembled with a series of inconsistent and incoherent reasons for its actions<\/em>,\u201d Tulsi Now wrote in an email to supporters on Thursday, explaining in the lawsuit that the company gave multiple conflicting reasons for the ad suspension before \u201csuddenly revers[ing] course completely and reinstat[ing] the Account<\/em>.\u201d By that time, of course, most voters had gone to bed \u2013 and others had seen whatever search results Google opted to serve up instead of Gabbard\u2019s campaign ads, an unappetizing prospect given the mainstream media\u2019s unflattering portrayal of Gabbard thus far.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cTo this day, Google has not provided a straight answer \u2013 let alone a credible one \u2013 as to why Tulsi\u2019s political speech was silenced right precisely when millions of people wanted to hear from her.\u201d<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The lawsuit also accuses Google of shunting campaign communications to Gmail users\u2019 spam folders more frequently than other political missives, attributing this to Google\u2019s history of \u201cplaying favorites<\/em>\u201d politically \u2013 a practice which has been hinted at by multiple whistleblowers and in congressional testimony. It points to Gabbard\u2019s advocacy for \u201creining in<\/em>\u201d Big Tech as the inspiration for the company\u2019s backlash.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tulsi Gabbard to sue Google for interfering in U.S. presidential election after blocked it blocked her campaign adverts<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-192177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-controlling-the-news-andor-the-free-exchange-of-ideas-and-information"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=192177"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":192180,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192177\/revisions\/192180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=192177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=192177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=192177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}