Meet the AI-Censored? Naked Capitalism

Google provides an early, scary test case for mechanized suppression by threatening a popular economics site with demonetization

Matt Taibbi

The future of AI-powered censorship is here, and the early returns are as error-filled and clumsily destructive as Google’s infamous Gemini rollout.

On March 4th, Yves Smith — nom de plume for the editor of Naked Capitalism, a popular site containing economics commentary and journalism — received an ominous letter from its ad service company:

Hope you are doing well!
We noticed that Google has flagged your site for Policy violation and ad serving is restricted on most of the pages with the below strikes…

The letter went on to list four data fields: VIOLENT_EXTREMI SM, HATEFUL_CONTENT , HARMFUL_HEALTH_ CLAIMS, and ANTI_VACCINATIO N. From there the firm explained: "If Google identifies the flags consistently and if the content is not fixed, then the ads will be disabled completely to serve on the site.”

"So this is a threat of complete demonetization, ” says Smith.