Did anyone else get slapped with policy violations?

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   thehandsposted 6 years ago

   A few weeks ago, some of my articles were flagged. It's kind of weird, because I haven't really written anything new lately. Four articles of mine that had been up for years were slapped with a Google policy violation and demonetized. According to them, these articles had "adult content."
   
   Well, I looked up their definition of adult content ("material that's meant to arouse," basically), and my articles certainly didn't fit that description. They're just informational articles with no overt sexual content. Why would they flag them, I wonder?
   
   Well, surprise surprise, soon I realized that all four of the articles did have something in common: they were about LGBTQ+ stuff. What a shock, right? What makes it so weird, though, is that two of these articles were around 6 or 7 years old and another one had been posted for about two years and was one of my highest traffic articles.
   
   I deleted the two older articles (because they kind of sucked, anyway), and then I sent the other two for review, because there really wasn't any adult content in them. They notified me today that they are still flagged, so I just turned the ads off because I don't want to fight back and forth over something so silly.
   
   I just find this kind of bewildering. The older articles especially were rather innocuous, and didn't really even mention sex, much less have actual sexual content. It was just informational stuff about relationships, mostly. All I can think of is that it was flagged simply because it's about gay stuff, but that can't be right...can it? Wouldn't that just be straight up homophobia?
   
   As it is, this makes me not want to write stuff--or at least not stuff in that niche--if it's just going to be randomly demonetized. Not a game that I want to play.
   
   Did something happen lately to make Google extra paranoid about article content? If you know anything or had a similar experience, I'd like to hear about it.

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   1. 92

      weezyschannelposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      Honestly, I am so tired of people and businesses being homophobic.  Who cares who you choose to love? Actually, I misstated that..not whom you CHOOSE but whom you identify with.  Like, I like dark hair and medium build men. Its not really my choice, it's what I'm attracted to. Very different levels here, I know. Just a simpler way to get my point across. Gay people shouldn't have to worry about anything..(including ads!)

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2. 63

   psycheskinnerposted 6 years ago

   Without seeing he hubs it is hard to say--but Hubpages has a less-than-blameless record when it comes to labeling gay-oriented material as adult, but not equivalent straight-oriented material.

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   1. 91

      Jean Bakulaposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      Others have written about LGBTQ topics and been censored, even if what they said was not overtly sexual, just general attempts at understanding or very general information. I just published a piece and wondered if it would be allowed to say "sexual orientation." So far, so good.
      
      Also, those who have dared to write about such subjects get hate speech in the comments, and the administration turns a blind eye. It's not right and I think the administration should get it's head out of the sand.

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      1. 92

         weezyschannelposted 6 years agoin reply to this

         I totally agree- so many young kids are committing suicide because of all the bullying that goes with it. And the churches make them feel unwelcomed and dirty... Every person sins... You don't see people putting signs up that says we will not Do business to a man who has cheated on his wife do you? That's a sin, so why is one sin okay and being gay is just a total Shameless Act? People don't CHOOSE to be gay. A friend of mine said how she told  her family who didn't accept it one time, and I never forgot it, she said: "do you think I like to be ridiculed? Do you think I go in my room and shut the door and cry every night because I choose to be gay?"

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3. 60

   paradigmsearchposted 6 years ago

   Google might be responsible for this and HP is just doing what it's told, https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/1/17522 … n-policies .

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4. 60

   paradigmsearchposted 6 years ago

   I remember a long time ago I wrote a hub entitled "The Sexy Girls of..."
   
   Boom! Ads disappeared.
   
   Here's the kicker. The pics and the word "Sexy" were liberated from a .gov site. Never mind that there was no porn, there wasn't even any adult content.
   
   And so it goes...

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5. 67

   thehandsposted 6 years ago

   Thanks for all the replies, ya'll. Looks like it's just Google being paranoid. Sucks to see that gay content seems more scrutinized than straight stuff. Kind of ridiculous, especially since one of those articles was my most popular one and people seemed to find it useful.
   
   Oh well. Like I said, not something I'm willing to put a lot of energy into, so it will just have to be what it is.

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