James Simons-
Google was utterly wrong to disable evidence of racism in Piers Morgan’s critical article of Simone Biles without evidencing racist content which they said existed there.
Piers Morgan’s article about Simone Biles’s decision to originally quit the olympic games citing mental health issues, unjustifiably led to google disabling ads on the Daily Mail column. Google really owes Piers Morgan, The Daily Mail, and the public an explanation.
Google’s CEO Sandar Pichai(pictured) may need to be contacted to address the issue, in an age when matters of free expression is increasingly under attack for reasons that don’t always match up with common sense. Not all free speech can be allowed, especially hate speech. Pichai is more than intelligent enough to understand this.
Any positive action taken against racism or any wrong conduct should be encouraged, but the act highlighted for criticism or disciplinary action must never be in doubt. In this case, it is, because it took google 24 hours to explain their action, and they did not defend their position with facts supporting claims of racism..
Morgan criticized the fact ”Biles was praised more for quitting than she would have been had she dug deep, battled on and helped her team win Gold rather than the silver medal they ended up with in Biles’ absence”.. Google cited dangerous and derogatory content in the article, none of which was found following a thorough examination by The Eye Of Media.Com.
Rather, Piers Morgan offered a very strict and critical piece about the star olympian’s decision to quit due to claimed mental health issues, which Biles need not clearly identify.
Morgan rightly points out that nothing he said was about her gender or skin colour, adding that he was just as critical about white male tennis star, Novak Djokovic when he threw his racquet-throwing tantrum on Saturday, and pulled out of the Doubles tournament, a decision which cost his partner a potential medal. The point made by the television presenter is important, because shouting racism when it is not there actually cheapens the legitimate cry of racism when it is evident, and needs to be called out.
The former television presenter has formed the view that any criticism against a black person is deemed racist- a perception that must not be allowed to go unchallenged.
Morgan’s serious error of judgement in openly dismissing Meghan Markle’s claim of mental health issues was different, because it was quite obvious why someone in the shoes of the Duchess Of Sussex could have developed mental health issues at the palace. Markle had struggled to adapt to life as a royal despite knowing she was marrying into the royal family.
The practical realities in both cases were were different. Her keys and passport were seized according to her, and we don’t know what attitudes were displayed or how it was communicated to her that she had to surrender her personal documents.
Meghan Markle also said that false articles were being written about her in the press and nobody was addressing those, and she felt ”the firm” were perpetuating the falsehoods in the press because the Palace often hosted the tabloids. Those circumstances were enough to cause anybody mental health issues, even if Markle was herself partly to blame for any other tensions in the palace.
In the case of Simone Biles, she told the public nothing, except that that her paternal aunt had died. Piers Morgan’s decision to criticize her was in that sense not outrageous- perhaps justified more given her decision to return to the games.
The only possible issue with Piers’s attack was the background of his attack on Meghan Markle still lurking in people’s minds. The fact Simone Biles is black may have struck the minds of many, especially black people, but that adds no weight to any criticism of Morgan.
The headline of his column read: ‘but there’s nothing heroic or brave about quitting because you’re not having ‘fun’ – you let down your team-mates, your fans and your country.’ It will be no surprise if the individuals who influenced google’s decision to remove ads on the Daily Mail column written by Piers Morgan have a personal issue with the outspoken critic, and they are clearly not alone.
U.S Olympian star was criticized by Piers Morgan Image:news.sky.com
Putting to one side Morgan’s defense that there was nothing derogatory in the article, there are no laws that forbid derogatory comment against an individual if the comment made is honestly made and not defamatory.
Piers Morgan has been covered and criticized on this publication a few times in the past when his actions have been found deserving of such criticism. As much as he has an army of critics, he also has an army of followers, especially in the media, who have sometimes been found to condone questionable conduct.
The Daily Mail Morgan writes for has also been caught allowing Piers Morgan or his colleagues defending his inexcusable behaviour on GMB in March, after Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s televised interview with Oprah , especially when he walked out of ITV’s studios- an error of judgement he now admits.
Piers Morgan criticism Of Biles was perfectly fine Image: news.sky.com
Morgan’s article criticizing Biles was perfectly okay, especially as she seemed to be given a heroic response for quitting. That praise was the kind of support celebrities get when they have messed up, which gives an appearance of blind support for someone just because of their status and financial position. It is not an attractive position to take in situations like that.
The one comment Piers Morgan made that is still being examined with budding analysts is his reference to his own mental health issues, which he says was never mentioned to explain his own actions.
That comment mentioned as a weapon against those he refers to as the woke brigade, has interestingly become a new dimension to a select expert team in this publication who are studying Piers Morgan as well as a few others, over a long term period, in order to discover patterns of behaviour that helps to provide a full picture of the individuals they are, not just the ones they want to be seen as being.
The Daily Mail should really be pinning google down to justify its reasons for taking ads off the column of its platform, or have them accept that they made an error of judgement themselves, based on past incidences involving Morgan, which should not have been mixed up with this situation.