One of the things Rev Al Sharpton has been effective at is going after the advertising base of offending media.Don’t think ESPN is coming from the same sewer as a Rush Limbaugh or other white-wing racist propagandists though. They appear to be just (poorly) trying to protect themselves from the political maelstrom. Could be interesting…
Funding for Richard Spencer, David Duke and other white-racist hate groups has traditionally been scarce. Your typical white-wing racist is no Rocket Scientist. The Internet provides the alt-right not only the opportunity to spread their message – but through advertising add-ons to make money with each click. Pull up a racist video, and get an Amazon ad in the margins. For each view the advertiser pays Google, who pays the bigots. Google and companies like Facebook have long ignored the content and environment of their streams, allowing hate groups and trolls to fester while taking a position that it is someone else’s fault.
Looks like Google is trying that again.
Perhaps one of the reasons Google has little sensitivity to the issue, is hey hire so few minorities?
Google has been thrown onto the back foot by a mass withdrawal of advertising from YouTube, triggered by concerns about extremist content.
Having apparently failed to realise until now that their ads have been showing up next to hate speech and homophobia, corporations and media agencies have said they plan to pull their entire ad spend from the Google-owned company.
One of the latest to do so is the UK arm of France’s Havas, one of the world’s largest ad agencies, whose clients include Domino’s, Emirates and the BBC. It has pulled all its UK advertising – currently worth around £175 million ($217 million) a year: “@Havas_MGUK has made decision to protect brands it represents in absence of reassurance or change of policy from YT,” tweets CEO and country manager Paul Frampton Calero.
Corporations including the BBC and the Guardian have also pulled their ads, along with L’Oreal, Honda and major supermarket chain Sainsbury’s; and GroupM, part of ad giant WPP, has hinted it could follow suit.
The row really began with a report from The Times that revealed that extremist YouTube videos from the likes of American white nationalist David Duke and Holocaust-denying fundamentalist pastor Steven Anderson were carrying mainstream ads.
The ads are placed by the company’s DoubleClick Ad Exchange Service, AdX, which uses programmatic trading to allocate ads automatically. These ads have been making money for the extremists – around £6 per 1,000 pageviews – as well as for Google itself.
As the row rumbled on, the company was called for talks at the UK Cabinet Office this afternoon, with Home Affairs Select Committee chairwoman Yvette Cooper describing its activities as ‘extremely troubling’.
“It is inexplicable to us that Google can move very fast to remove material from YouTube when it is found to be copyrighted, but that the same prompt action is not taken when the material involves proscribed organisations and hateful and illegal content,” she wrote in a letter to the company.
“The Committee expects to hear from you on how you are using some of YouTube’s very significant revenue to put this problem right by devoting sufficient resources to ensure that vile and illegal material is removed proactively from your platforms, and that neither you nor those that create these videos profit from hatred.”
The government has now pulled all advertising, including military recruitment and blood donation campaigns – and demanded to know whether Google will give it a refund.
“It is totally unacceptable that taxpayer-funded advertising has appeared next to inappropriate internet content – and that message was conveyed very clearly to Google,” a government spokesperson tells Forbes.
“The Cabinet Office has told Google it expects to see a plan and a timetable for work to improve protection of government adverts to ensure this doesn’t happen again. YouTube advertising remains on hold while that work is carried out.”
And, says the spokesperson, Google will be called back next week for a follow-up meeting at which it will be expected to promise further action.
Google is, well, practically grovelling.
“We’ve heard from our advertisers and agencies loud and clear that we can provide simpler, more robust ways to stop their ads from showing against controversial content,” says UK managing director Ronan Harris in a statement.
“While we have a wide variety of tools to give advertisers and agencies control over where their ads appear, such as topic exclusions and site category exclusions, we can do a better job of addressing the small number of inappropriately monetized videos and content.”
He adds that the company is now reviewing its policies and plans to make changes.
However, the cynic might note that these changes will, he says, ‘give brands more control over where their ads appear across YouTube and the Google Display Network’. In other words, they will put the ball in the advertisers’ court.
Next time this sort of thing happens – and it will – Google will be able to pass on at least some of the blame.
Rush Limbaugh has certainly lit the fuse on a bigger keg of dynamite than even he could have envisioned with his comments about Sandra Fluke and the Georgetown women.
Anyone has a question about who has the power in this country just needs to check out Drugbo’s example. It took COlor of Change over a year to make a definitive dent in Glenn Beck’s Faux News racism…
Looks like it is only going to take the ladies about a month to take Drugbo down.
Yeah – Cut off his supply of Viagra!
At least 39 companies have pulled their ads from the “The Rush Limbaugh Show” since the conservative talk show host called a law student a “slut” on the air last week, as the social media blitz against the popular radio program showed no signs of slowing down Wednesday.
Companies are continuing to join the rapidly growing list of businesses that have ceased advertising on Limbaugh’s show, responding to the flood of grievances that are pouring in from disgruntled customers.
The list of companies that officially announced on Twitter, Facebook or in statements to other media outlets that they would stop advertising on the radio show include: AccuQuote Life Insurance, Allstate Insurance, AOL, Bare Escentuals, Bethesda Sedation Dentistry, Bonobos, Capital One, Carbonite, Cascades Dental, Citrix, Consolidated Credit Counseling Services, Constant Contact, Cunningham Security, Freedom Debt Relief, Girl Scouts, Goodwill Industries, Hadeed Carpet, JCPenney, Legal Zoom, Matrix Direct, Netflix, Norway Savings Bank, Philadelphia Orchestra, PolyCom, Portland Ovations, ProFlowers, Quicken Loans, Regal Assets, Reputation Rhino, RSVP Discount Beverage, Sears, Sensa, Service Magic, Sleep Train, Sleep Number, St. Vincent’s Medical Center, Tax Resolution, Thompson Creek Windows and Vitacost.
The SS Limbaugh appears to be going in the same direction as the SS Glenn Beck…
Down.
A Do run..run…run…
I mean – is there a virus going around that affects right wing talking heads and politicians?
On the politico side – Michelle Bachmann, then Rick Perry, then the King of Beckistan – Herman Cain.
On the talking head side – Glenn Beck, recently followed by the timely demise of Andrew Brietbart, and now Rush Limbaugh.
One has to wonder when they are going to announce Ann Coulter has Prostate cancer.
SS Limbaugh
Advertisers are rushing to the exits of Rush Limbaugh’s radio show after customers inundated the Internet with outrage over the conservative commentator’s widely criticized “slut” comments about Sandra Fluke.
Online media giant AOL and tax attorney group Tax Resolution Services announced today that they were pulling their commercials from Limbaugh’s program, bringing the total number of companies withdrawing their ads to nine.
“At AOL one of our core values is that we act with integrity,” the company said Monday on its Facebook page. “We have monitored the unfolding events and have determined that Mr. Limbaugh’s comments are not in line with our values.”
Limbaugh dubbed Georgetown University law school student Sandra Fluke a “slut” and a “prostitute” for testifying before a congressional committee that birth control should be covered under employee health insurance plans.
Limbaugh has been widely criticized by many Democrats and women’s rights groups, but the Republican response has been measurably more muted. The GOP presidential candidates have stopped short of all-out condemning Limbaugh’s statements. And the pro-Newt Gingrich Super Pac Winning Our Future is running a national radio ad during Limbaugh show.
The Super Pac’s spokesman Rick Tyler said the group had no intention of pulling its pro-Gingrich ads from Limbaugh’s show.
Gingrich has steered clear of criticizing Limbaugh, instead re-ocusing the issue on President Obama, whom he says “opportunistically” interjected himself into the issue by calling Fluke on Friday.
Lear Capital, a gold and silver investment firm, and LifeLock, an identity theft protection service, are both sticking with Limbaugh. LifeLock posted Saturday on Facebook that Limbaugh’s comments “in no way reflect the opinions of LifeLock” but did not say it was considering pulling their ads.
Lear Capital posted on its Facebook page that the company was “evaluating our advertising relationship” with Limbaugh and was “very concerned” about Limbaugh’s comments, which it said “blurred” the lines between “free speech and unnecessary personal attacks.”
While Limbaugh apologized for his “choice of words” on Friday, some advertisers are still fleeing his show.
The web-based flower delivery company ProFlowers withdrew its ads on Sunday. Online document company Legal Zoon and document security group Carbonite pulled their ads on Saturday.
The Internet software maker Citrix, mattress companies Sleep Train and Sleep Number and mortgage lender Quicken Loans suspended their advertising on Friday, before Limbaugh’s apology.
All nine former advertisers cited a conflict of values as the reason for dropping their ads.
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