Kentucky Senator Rand Paul has his eyes locked onto the creation of the Coronavirus like a man obsessed and it’s no wonder. The pandemic was one of the largest naked seizures of power in the United States we’ve ever seen and a man like Paul doesn’t take that kind of thing lightly.

It’s this focus that led him to pen an article for Townhall titled “Gain of Function Research: A Death Wish for the World,” in which Paul explains how the Coronavirus was manipulated in order to produce what we now know as SARS-CoV-2. He explains that too much information points to the fact that the virus was produced in a lab in Wuhan, China, and that with his new status as the “ranking member of a major committee,” he’s going to get to the bottom of the mystery that’s been plaguing us for so long and hold those responsible accountable.

The article itself is definitely worth a read, but that’s not the focus of this article. What this article is concerned with is what happened after it was published on Townhall.

As Townhall reported, Google attempted to hit Paul’s column with some penalty flags by labeling it as “unreliable and harmful.” This, in turn, caused the column to become demonetized, sapping ad revenue from the site.

Google has flagged @SenRandPaul's Townhall column as "unreliable and harmful."

This is how Big Tech attempts to bully conservative media into backing down from reporting the truth.

Our VIP members allow us to stand against these tech censors, and continue to tell the truth. pic.twitter.com/9nBDpm41gq

— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) February 16, 2023

As Townhall notes, the purpose of the demonitization was an attempt to bully Townhall into stripping something influential from their site. Paul’s popularity makes him dangerous as more people will push this article around, thus making the idea that the mainstream media’s narrative of the virus being a freak evolution originating from a dirty food market questionable. Moreover, that Paul is investigating the origin of the virus isn’t something the hard leftists at Google want as common knowledge.

Thus, they attempted to rob Townhall of money in an attempt to strongarm them into silence.

Only it didn’t work.

Instead of backing down, Townhall went loud with Google’s attempts to censor them. The moment that happened Google backed down themselves and pretended it was all just a misunderstanding as townhall noted at the beginning and end of Paul’s article in an editor’s note.

This column was originally flagged by Google for containing “unreliable and harmful claims.” After bringing this to the public’s attention, Google issued a statement saying the article was “labeled in error” and has since removed the flag.

Still, the damage was done. A trick Google has been using for some time (especially on YouTube) is to demonetize something it doesn’t agree with politically — despite it following the rules and regulations put forward by the site — upon the article or video’s initial release. The creator makes an appeal that can sit in an inbox for anywhere from an hour to a day. Since the majority of the clicks come in at the beginning of the product’s release, it misses out on the revenue.

Google will finally confirm that the flag put on the content was in error and requalify it for monetization, but by that time the clicks have slowed significantly and the money that the creator would have made is largely missed out on.

So while Google might have caved to Townhall making it all public, they still left a bruise.

This is how big tech censors people and outlets without outright blocking or banning them. They rob creators of income over what they claim are just misunderstandings, but are, in truth, deliberate attempts to cripple people and opinions they don’t like by attacking their ability to make money off of their work.

If you’re wondering why sites increasingly rely on subscription plans, this is why. Left to the leftists at big tech companies, conservative sites, and content creators would starve. It’s an unfair battlefield we’re fighting on where the ground beneath can be ripped out from underneath creators at any moment.

This is why RedState has the VIP program. We’ve come under attack quite a few times, but it’s thanks to VIP memberships that we’re still afloat. Frankly, the more subscriptions we have the better, so we’re offering 50 percent off on sign-up when you use promo code “CENSORSHIP.”

Just follow the link here, plug in the code, and get even more content not available to non-subs.

The VIP program is our sword and shield, allowing us to continue to operate at a time when the powers that be actively work against us. It’s times like this when we can’t thank subscribers enough.