When the founder of a Christian war veteran recovery programme in Arizona, USA tried to upload a YouTube ad for his organisation, he received an odd rejection, informing him the keyword “Christian” was no longer acceptable under the site’s new ad targeting policy.
Chad Robichaux, the founder of the Mighty Oaks Foundation – a faith-based service organisation that teaches combat veterans struggling with Post Traumatic Stress how to get beyond trauma and live their lives in the manner God intended, told Faithwire that his marketing team tried to publish an advertisement on Saturday for an episode of the “Mighty Oaks Show,” which features interviews with veterans.
The particular episode the ad was intended to promote included an interview with Darrin Dick, director and producer of the documentary Unforgotten which tells the story of how Korean War veteran Harold Bauer, his grandfather, found hope and healing in his Christian faith.
Chad took to Twitter with a screenshot detailing his encounter with the tech giant, claiming not allowing the word Christian was discriminating:
“We ran a YouTube ad for our veterans ministry outreach for those in need & it was denied for the word “Christian”. Insane! #Censorship should terrify every American; conservative or liberal, Christian or Muslim. This bias is a dangerous course for America.” @MightyOaksFDN
The YouTube team responded to Mr Robichaux’s tweet, maintaining that targeting users based on their religion was in breach of their advertising policy but that adverts can include the term ‘Christian’ in them and still hope to reach a Christian audience.
“We know that religious beliefs are personal, so we don’t allow advertisers to target users on the basis of religion. Beyond that, we don’t have policies against advertising that includes religious terms like “Christian”.
Mr Robichaux has called out the tech giant for religious discrimination, saying that he posted the same ad with a target label of ‘Muslim’ and was not asked to take it down.
“We ran the exact same ad with the keyword “Muslim” & it was approved but “Christian” was not. Additionally, we’ve ran ads with the keyword “Christian” for years. This year alone we had 150,000 impressions on that word in our ads. As per your support line this is a new restriction”
After speaking with Google’s help desk, Mr Robichaux was told the policy was new.
Google has yet to comment publicly on the matter.
Recent years have seen Google in hot water over alleged censorship of Christian content.
In March this year, the tech company made headlines when it prohibited a video explaining Christian teaching on same-sex marriage from advertising on YouTube. The decision came after a tête-à-tête on Google’s internal messaging service.
Vishal Sharma, vice president for product management and ads at Google, agreed the video was offensive and said the organisation doesn’t “allow advertising that disparages people based on who they are — including their sexual orientation — and we remove ads that violate this basic principle.”
“After careful and multiple reviews over the course of a few days,” he continued, “our teams decided to remove the ad in question here, as it violates our policy. We’ve communicated this to the advertiser and have been in touch with creators who have been actively engaged on this issue.”
Again in April 2018, Google was similarly criticised for barring ads from Concordia Publishing House, owned by the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, because they contained references to “Jesus” and the “Bible.”
That issue, though, was a little more complex, given the ads CPH was submitting for approval were technically “remarketing” advertisements, which are ads catered directly to users who have visited certain websites in the past. To protect users’ privacy, Google doesn’t allow “remarketing” ads to specifically target people based on sensitive subjects, such as political affiliations or religious beliefs.
Sources: Premier.org.uk, Faithwire.com
Hallelujah Magazine is committed to publishing reliable, trusted, quality and independent Christian journalism. Our journalism is free from commercial bias and is not influenced by wealthy people, politicians, clerics or shareholders. We value our readers’ feedback, suggestions and opinions. Have something to add to the story? Share it in the comments below. Like this story? Share it with a friend!
