Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard is suing Google for $50 million, accusing the internet company of suspending her advertising account in the hours after last month’s debate because it was trying to silence her.
Tulsi Now Inc., a campaign committee for the candidate, says in the lawsuit filed Thursday in California that Google violated the Hawaii congresswoman’s right to free speech. The lawsuit says Google didn’t provide “a straight answer” for suspending her ads account.
Google spokesperson Riva Sciuto says in a statement that its automated systems that flag unusual activity triggered a suspension and that Gabbard’s account was quickly reinstated. Scuito denied that Google has a political bias.
Gabbard says Google’s actions “should be of concern to all political candidates and in fact all Americans.”
(AP)
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5 Responses
How is it that such places as restaurants are allowed, and as the news shows often publicly did, kick out customers who were of the “wrong” (meaning Republican) political affiliation and all these Democrats applauded that action. Now these hypocrites are complaining when it accidentally happens to one of their own?
Google is a private company and is not bound by the first amendment.
> Milhouse
Yes and no. I am not a lawyer, but years of reading the news tells me the following. While not a government department, Google is still a “public” company and there are strict federal laws as to the rules governing the service they supply. As a “public” company the government may even force it to “split” if the government does not like its behaviour. And certainly the government can block any merger or acquisition Google may want to make. And further, “human rights” issue could brought against them – it was brought against a tiny bakery (true, that was a “sex” thing but a human rights complaint is all on how you spin it). And what will real scare them is the implicit threat of creating new legislation.
Interesting how she never complained when conservative accounts were suspended from many social media sites.
No, Georgeg, everything you wrote is completely wrong.