An undercover video from James O’Keefe and the investigative journalists at Project Veritas shows a Google employee boasting that the company “censor out news from your search engine,” and stop “right-wing parties from advertising.”
The Google employee — marketing technical account manager Adriano Amaduzzi — also revealed that he has chosen to ignore a request for a pro-Brexit advertisement on the company’s search engine.
“You can offer free credits, free advertising credits, to Democratic parties for advertising,” said Amaduzzi to a Project Veritas journalist who had a hidden camera.
The Google technical account manager added that the company can also suppress Republicans using the so-called “Trust and Safety” team, adding that the majority of Google’s Trust and Safety staffers are “extreme left,” and could be involved in the U.S. presidential election.
“You can, potentially — censor out news from your search engine,” said Amaduzzi. “By stopping Presi–, or actually stopping right-wing parties from advertising.”
Amaduzzi also boasted about how he chose to ignore a request for pro-Brexit advertisements to be placed on Google and its platforms.
“Funny enough about Brexit, I had a guy, linked to, me, for no reason — I don’t know why — contacted me from LinkedIn and say: ‘Hi I’m head of digital infrastructure of the Conservative Party of the United Kingdom, we would like to do advertising with Google, could you help me with that?’ I was like — I didn’t answer,” said Amaduzzi.
O’Keefe noted that “we’ve seen censorship of free thought and stories from the Big Tech giants,” and that “many believe this kind of editorial suppression will affect the upcoming election.”
“But it seems the biggest tech giant of them all, Google, may have other ways to impact the election — this time coming from their ad sales division overseas,” he added.
During Amaduzzi’s exchange with the Project Veritas journalist, he noted that blocking pro-Brexit ads was a personal decision for him, as he is “an Italian that lives in London.”
“You’re telling an Italian that lives in London that you want to advertise Brexit. It’s like, seriously?” said Amaduzzi. “Promoting the blocking [of the] free movement of non-European people.”
Later in the exchange, the journalist asked Amaduzzi, “because you’re the gatekeeper of Google, what you’re going to allow to advertise. So, if they want to promote it–”
“No, not really, I wish I was that influential. I’m just one of the pawns,” replied Amaduzzi.
“But in a way you are because you said you can say no, which is—” said the Project Veritas journalist.
“Oh yeah, I didn’t help him,” answered the Google technical account manager.
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, on Parler at @alana, and on Instagram.
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