Conjoint Gaming [Game On]

After decades of compliant ad serving on our communities website, suddenly our website is flagged for “Dangerous or derogatory content.”. The problem isn't our users, or our content. It's an ad system that can't tell the difference between discussion and hate speech, punishing our users from speaking freely about "sensitive topics". While ads running on our website don't provide much in the way of income or keeping this site running at all (since we are essentially a dead community and this is a relic for people to look back at unless at a later point of time we attempt some kind of revival), it's still a part of it.

So what happened?

The short version,

This week, Google’s AdSense system cut ads on several pages of our long running forum, labeling them “Dangerous or derogatory content.” The pages weren’t spewing slurs; they were community discussions touching on sensitive topics (e.g., sexuality, identity). When an ad network this dominant imposes blunt, context-blind rules, it doesn’t just throttle our revenue it breaks normal conversation.

What Google’s rule actually says

Google’s “Dangerous or derogatory content” policy forbids content that “incites hatred,” “promotes discrimination,” or “disparages” protected groups (including sexual orientation and gender identity). That aim blocking true bigotry is reasonable. But the policy, as enforced, often ignores context, treating neutral or educational discussion as if it were hate speech.

Google Help

Since 2017, Google’s page-level enforcement framework has let it demonetize specific URLs rather than your entire site, and publishers are told to fix the page or request a review in the Policy Center. In practice, that still means revenue loss and triage for small teams. Clearly this isn't a 2017 issue however as Youtube and other platforms have witnessed massive pressure in the last 5 years or so.

Why this matters beyond our site

When dominant ad networks equate discussion of marginalized identities with attacks on those identities, they push entire communities off the economic map. Independent forums, local newsrooms, and niche communities get the message: avoid sensitive topics or lose your lifeline.

This isn’t hypothetical. Investigations have shown advertiser controls and platform defaults that made it hard to place ads next to “social justice” or LGBTQ-related content even when that content wasn’t hateful. Creators and publishers have reported years of inconsistent demonetization in these areas.

What we’re doing
(and what other publishers can try)

We’re appealing Google’s decision and documenting every single flagged URL. If you’re in the same boat, here’s the playbook:

Open the Policy Center to see page level enforcement's; export the list for tracking. Then request reviews in batches after changes.
Google Help

Preserve the discussion; adjust the ad surface. Move ad units off individual thread pages where sensitive terms appear and onto category indexes, home/archives, and utility pages. (It’s not a moral concession—it’s recognizing how the classifier behaves.)
Keep receipts. In your appeal, cite exact passages showing the content is discussion not derogation and reference Google’s own policy language about prohibited attacks, not neutral talk.

What changes we are making for lightweight guardrails:

Prominent forum rules against slurs/attacks; visible moderator notes on hot threads. (This is close what we already have)
A short explainer near sensitive discussions clarifying educational/neutral intent.
Auto-hide or replace ads on threads with certain keyword/phrase combinations or in specific categories. (In Tandem to this topics we can't make "advertiser" friendly will be moved to another ad free board)

In the end, We’ll keep moderating our forum against genuine harassment. We’ll also keep talking about the real world stuff too, because communities need those conversations. If that’s “dangerous,” the danger isn’t coming from us. We have removed ads from those pages and from the new "Retired Content" board which will remain ad free. This is in effort to maintain the authenticity of the website. We will not be censored.

As always thank you everyone for your continued support and I hope everyone is having an amazing life. ConjointGaming was a huge part of my life for a long time and I truly hope everyone is doing well and playing the heck out of BF6.

Love as always,
Inject OH4