Google bans ads from Christian Publishing House

[webman]

Google's rules are pretty clear. They don't allow advertising of religious beliefs. Furthermore they do not allow advertising from places of worship. It's right there in black and white in Google's policies:

"Prohibited categories
The following Personalized advertising policies cover categories that are legally or culturally sensitive and are not supported in personalized ads. The following sensitive interest categories can’t be used by advertisers to target ads to users or promote advertisers’ products or services."
"Religious belief in personalized advertising

Personal religious beliefs
Examples: places of worship, religious guidance, religious education or universities, religious products"

Personalized advertising - Advertising Policies Help

"We do have restrictions on this type of ad. For example, we prohibit advertisers from selecting an audience based on sensitive information, such as health information or religious beliefs."

https://policies.google.com/technologies/ads

 

[Glass*Soul]

What is the advantage to Christian groups in fudging the facts in order to appear more persecuted than they are? Is it something to do with the Christian romanticism of persecution as something to boast about? I got flogged x number of times? More times than this other guy? Is it guilt over actually having things really easy combined with a dread of any actual persecution? Google is holding us to its terms of service, oh help help! Is it a cry for attention? A ploy to get more contributions? Such puffed up pride over being the "good guys" that anything short of utter privileged is an affront?

What was actually going on here?

 

[webman]

What is the advantage to Christian groups in fudging the facts in order to appear more persecuted than they are? Is it something to do with the Christian romanticism of persecution as something to boast about? I got flogged x number of times? More times than this other guy? Is it guilt over actually having things really easy combined with a dread of any actual persecution? Google is holding us to its terms of service, oh help help! Is it a cry for attention? A ploy to get more contributions? Such puffed up pride over being the "good guys" that anything short of utter privileged is an affront?
What was actually going on here?

No one is "fudging" the facts. Look at my previous post. I posted hard facts right from Google. This has nothing to do with "Christians appearing more prosecuted". It's the truth and fact that Google bans religious beliefs, places of worship and anything religion based from advertising with Google. You really need to stay on topic here.

 

[iluvatar5150]

What is the advantage to Christian groups in fudging the facts in order to appear more persecuted than they are? Is it something to do with the Christian romanticism of persecution as something to boast about? I got flogged x number of times? More times than this other guy? Is it guilt over actually having things really easy combined with a dread of any actual persecution? Google is holding us to its terms of service, oh help help! Is it a cry for attention? A ploy to get more contributions? Such puffed up pride over being the "good guys" that anything short of utter privileged is an affront?

What was actually going on here?

Money and power. Persecution and fear are powerful tools for drumming up support among the base.

No one is "fudging" the facts. Look at my previous post. I posted hard facts right from Google.

You overlooked the fact that these rules only apply to one of their many ad platforms, and you left out all the other things that Google also prohibits from that platform.

This has nothing to do with "Christians appearing more prosecuted". It's the truth and fact that Google bans religious beliefs, places of worship and anything religion based from advertising with Google. You really need to stay on topic here.

Did you actually read the original complaint from CPH? Did you then bother to read the first two pages of this thread where I and others explained on multiple occasions what's going on with these rules?

Despite what Bruce Kintz of CPH claimed, it is neither true that Google outright banned CPH from advertising on their platform, nor is it true that Google told CPH to pull down the Bible Challenge page off their VBS website. What is true is that Google restricts many categories of sensitive material from being advertised through its personalized advertising platforms (i.e. those targeted at people who've already visited your site). CPH broke those rules, however their ads would be allowed on Google's ad platforms that aren't personalized.

Kintz went public with his claim before verifying his facts and has apparently since removed that original post from his Facebook page (I can't find it anymore).
Bruce Kintz

 

[hedrick]

The politics of outrage aren't limited to evangelicals. I see it on the liberal side as well. There are some things that we really should be outraged about. But it is reasonable to ask that people at least verify facts, and if you're going to post about some outrageous thing you should include the real context.

One problem with the Internet is that stories spread rapidly. I check out stories like this fairly often. I usually find the same thing, word for word, on a large number of sites. After a lot of looking I finally find an article that explains what really happened.

 

[webman]

Did you actually read the original complaint from CPH? Did you then bother to read the first two pages of this thread where I and others explained on multiple occasions what's going on with these rules?

Despite what Bruce Kintz of CPH claimed, it is neither true that Google outright banned CPH from advertising on their platform, nor is it true that Google told CPH to pull down the Bible Challenge page off their VBS website. What is true is that Google restricts many categories of sensitive material from being advertised through its personalized advertising platforms (i.e. those targeted at people who've already visited your site). CPH broke those rules, however their ads would be allowed on Google's ad platforms that aren't personalized.

Kintz went public with his claim before verifying his facts and has apparently since removed that original post from his Facebook page (I can't find it anymore).
Bruce Kintz

My point is clear. Whether it is CPH or any other entity, ads about religion will be banned from Google because of their policies. No, Google didn't ban CPH as a whole, or all ads from CPH, However, any ad related to religion, places of worship and religious beliefs will not be allowed on Google. Since CPH is a religious entity, I doubt any of their ads will be accepted on google. If I am a Giraffe farmer and Google bans ads about giraffes, essentially they are banning me because my business is about giraffes! P.S. Giraffes are awesome!

 

[Glass*Soul]

No one is "fudging" the facts. Look at my previous post. I posted hard facts right from Google. This has nothing to do with "Christians appearing more prosecuted". It's the truth and fact that Google bans religious beliefs, places of worship and anything religion based from advertising with Google. You really need to stay on topic here.

I was not referring specifically to your post. I was referring to Concordia and others who got all outraged over their being held to Google's standards for personalized ads. The Op even referred to it as "a shot over the bow."

As for the rest, I really have nothing to add to iluvatar's excellent reply.

If you want an example of how people react when they encounter religious ads that go against their personal beliefs, just go to this recent topic: Atheist billboard coming down after complaints.. Does if feel different when the shoe is on the other foot? Would the atheist community have ever put up that billboard if simply looking at it earned people a barrage of atheist ads? Well, it wouldn't, but visiting a Lutheran VBS site might might have subjected users to a barrage of ads aimed to exploit that little hint of interest if Google hadn't caught it.

CPH would have done better to Tweet a "Sorry, our bad, we didn't stop to think how disturbing or even dangerous that might be to some people."

 

[Glass*Soul]

My point is clear. Whether it is CPH or any other entity, ads about religion will be banned from Google because of their policies. No, Google didn't ban CPH as a whole, or all ads from CPH, However, any ad related to religion, places of worship and religious beliefs will not be allowed on Google. Since CPH is a religious entity, I doubt any of their ads will be accepted on google. If I am a Giraffe farmer and Google bans ads about giraffes, essentially they are banning me because my business is about giraffes! P.S. Giraffes are awesome!

My understanding is that religious organizations may use Google AdWords. These ads appear when you do a search on a relevant topic but don't follow you around to unrelated sites.

Anyone correct me if I'm wrong.

This whole CPH kerfuffle is not about Google being anti-religion but about protecting people's privacy on sensitive topics, or at least appearing to given the current clime.

But that means a bunch of nice Lutherans aren't being persecuted and maybe that, in and of itself is a problem if you follow a religion that regards persecution as a sign of blessedness. Yes? No?

 

[iluvatar5150]

My point is clear. Whether it is CPH or any other entity, ads about religion will be banned from Google because of their policies. No, Google didn't ban CPH as a whole, or all ads from CPH, However, any ad related to religion, places of worship and religious beliefs will not be allowed on Google. Since CPH is a religious entity, I doubt any of their ads will be accepted on google. If I am a Giraffe farmer and Google bans ads about giraffes, essentially they are banning me because my business is about giraffes! P.S. Giraffes are awesome!

You're still conflating Google's retargeting ad service with all of Google's ad services. Religious content is allowed on some of their services, but not on others.

CPH's original claim wrongly played the persecution card. There is nothing persecutory about this policy.

 

[Moral Orel]

CPH has released an update:
Concordia Publishing House Responds to Google Disabling of Faith-Based Advertising

It had nothing to do with their web site and everything to do with content they were putting into specific kinds of personalized ads.

Google's personalized advertising services (of which remarketing ads are one) prohibit the mention of a whole host of sensitive topics, not just religious beliefs:
Personalized advertising - Advertising Policies Help

It's so nice that Mr Kintz and The Federalist decided to get their facts straight before publicly playing the persecution card.

It doesn't matter. You're too late. Your post isn't the OP or maybe the second or third post, so most people won't read it. Years from now you'll see people referencing this story without any consideration to the context you provided, and still spouting the narrative put forth by the OP. The story got out there, people believed it happened exactly as described as soon as they heard it because that's what they wanted to believe, and now it's a fact.

 

[KCfromNC]

What is the advantage to Christian groups in fudging the facts in order to appear more persecuted than they are?

It works to rile up the base. Why do you think far-right voters vote against their economic best interests in election after election?

 

[jazzflower92]

Be honest don't you think this ban on all things religious advertising is at least stupid and actually contradicts their so-called inclusive policies. This ban affects all religious advertising, including non-Christians.

 

[jardiniere]

Be honest don't you think this ban on all things religious advertising is at least stupid and actually contradicts their so-called inclusive policies. This ban affects all religious advertising, including non-Christians.

Not stupid, not contradictory. Not stupid because it (putatively) protects a user's privacy of browsing; not contradictory because it's not the only advertising product offered by Google, and the other products do allow targeted religious advertising. Look here, again. It's a good explanation that there's a decent reason why Concordia shouldn't be allowed to advertise on Google's retargeting advertising product.

 

[KarateCowboy]

Oh goody, the old "if you're so tolerant, why don't you tolerate intolerance" taunt.

When you actually understand tolerance, you know that people have different ideas about what constitutes acceptable levels of tolerance and intolerance, and when you draw the line and say "OK well something just needs to be done now".

Also, being against something is not intolerance. In fact, you have to be against something in order to be tolerant of it. If you're not against it or think do not think it is bad then it's not tolerance; it's acceptance or promotion.

 

[jazzflower92]

Not stupid, not contradictory. Not stupid because it (putatively) protects a user's privacy of browsing; not contradictory because it's not the only advertising product offered by Google, and the other products do allow targeted religious advertising. Look here, again. It's a good explanation that there's a decent reason why Concordia shouldn't be allowed to advertise on Google's retargeting advertising product.

That reasoning could go for other products. It seems rather selective in enforcement.

 

[GeorgeJ]

Google bans ads from Christian Publishing House

 

[Glass*Soul]

Be honest don't you think this ban on all things religious advertising is at least stupid and actually contradicts their so-called inclusive policies. This ban affects all religious advertising, including non-Christians.

It doesn't ban all religious advertising and has nothing to do with Google objecting to religion on principle. It only effects a specific type of Google advertising that, once you show an interest in a topic, more or less follows you around and goes on showing you related ads for months. As there are certain topics for which this might cause distress or even danger to some users due to potentially outing them to their family or their boss, etc., these topics are not allowed to use this form of advertising. Religious ads may be placed on Google AdWords, wherein ads only appear in the results when you search a related topic.

 

[Glass*Soul]

That reasoning could go for other products. It seems rather selective in enforcement.

It does go for other products including those that pertain to personal hardships, identity and belief, or sexual interests. Lutheran VBS may seem like the most innocuous subject ever, but for some people out there an interest in Christianity may be fraught with potential trouble. Yes?