Five years ago, I co-founded the campaign to make Breitbart unprofitable. They lost 90% of their ad revenues in 3 months. Today, we're launching the campaign to take on Fox News — and we know exactly how to get the job done. cc
@mediagazer
In the last 2 weeks, I notified Volvo, Planet Fitness, Disney Plus, Verizon, Hilton, Etsy, Audi and Royal Bank of Canada that their ads were running on Steve Bannon's War Room. As of today, they're ALL gone.
Any journos want to cover the biggest untold story in adtech?
[Interrupts beautiful tropical vacation to share the following:]
A handful of men in adtech are planning to get rich off selling the data of any woman attempting to secure an abortion directly to law enforcement.
Here are faces of the men behind
@SafeGraph
.
1.
@auren
This
@indystar
story of two young women tracking down a kidnapper & the baby is absolutely jaw-dropping.
So I’m wondering why
@cnn
wrote a completely different story? It’s almost like this one is completely false.
@harmeetkaur
Call’s over. There’s so much we could unpack here but ultimately, El*n just presented a fundamentally unviable (and deeply unfocused) product roadmap.
Advertisers aren’t coming back. This ship is going down.
So far on this call, El*n says:
•We will ban impersonators and keep their $8
•Eventually impersonators will stop making accounts bc losing $ is a disincentive
•I have a lot of faith in humanity, most people are good
???
HOLY SHIT.
@WSJ
is reporting that ~80% of the ads
@YouTube
serves across the web have violated their own terms of service — and are therefore subject to refunds.
This is...a devastatingly huge deal.
@GoogleAds
is about to be out billions of $$.
So
@PayPal
just banned the KKK and Fox News chose to cover it w/ a
@foxandfriends
clip called "PayPal Bans Conservative Sites, Faces Backlash"
Because at
@FoxNews
, the KKK is just a conservative group.
So far on this call, El*n says:
•We will ban impersonators and keep their $8
•Eventually impersonators will stop making accounts bc losing $ is a disincentive
•I have a lot of faith in humanity, most people are good
???
NEW:
@Shopify
is behind Libs Of TikTok’s main revenue stream.
@tobi
, I know you’re into free speech, but does mass murder cross the line for you?
@ShopifySupport
Guys, Fox News is a lot more fragile than you think it is.
I ran an *anonymous* account that took Bill O'Reilly — the highest rated show on TV — off the air. We lost Tucker Carlson every single natl advertiser.
We've broken off pieces b4 — and YES, we can break the whole thing.
The biggest story in tech no one’s talking about is Uber discovering they’d been defrauded out of $100M - or 2/3 of their ad spend.
And all bc Sleeping Giants kept bugging them to block their ads on Breitbart.
Fox News is more fragile than you think. Together we can pressure the ad industry to drop Fox News because of their support of the Jan. 6 insurrection.
And we have proof that it works.
Join us:
.
@CNN
reports that police found the baby through divine intervention: “God opened up the heavens to us and put [the baby] right in our hands.”
The real story? Two women had already tracked down the kidnapper & were now looking for the baby in her stolen Honda.
This summer, NYT Opinion invited me to write an op-ed based on a viral thread I wrote on businesses supporting ICE.
I spent 2 days writing the piece. NYT went thru a day of edits. Next day, they canceled it.
The reason was b.s. I still wonder who on that desk killed my piece.
2.
@bokelley
Brian O’Kelley previously founded
@appnexus
and prides himself on being the first ad exchange to drop Breitbart.
Now, he’s a major investor in a co that will help law enforcement “catch” women seeking medical care & abortions.
3.
@JoeZawadzki
Joe founded
@mediamath
, famously known as “Math Media.” He probably got rich off of that, and will now get rich off of selling out women who have no idea they’re being tracked and personally identified when they visit
@PPFA
.
I can’t go so far as to say this
@CNN
story is disinformation (deliberately false).
But it is factually incorrect and misleading enough that it should be retracted.
The cops did not find this baby.
4.
@rickerwin
The man behind this peachy grin is CEO of
@adstradata
. It’s unclear how much he invested in
@safegraph
but he too, stands to make a lot of cash off the enforcement of the nationwide abortion ban.
7.
@tod
Tod Sacerdoti is former CEO of
@brightroll
and a self-declared “
#girldad
.” As a
@SafeGraph
investor, he will ensure his daughter and her peers could be pursued by law enforcement and sent to prison for attempting to access safe abortions.
6.
@mikedfresh
Mike Derezin used to run things at
@LinkedIn
and now does something something crypto. Of course he’s invested in a company that plans to destroy the lives of women seeking safe medical treatment.
WOW.
@WSJ
reports that our Tucker Carlson ad boycotts was indeed a significant concern for Fox News, which was in fact losing $$$ on his show.
It turns out Fox execs have been grin & bearing it for years.
“An immense step change to what it has been. I’m a technologist and I can make technology go fast, so that’s what you’ll be seeing..”
As
@reckless
has said, this man genuinely does not understand that he is head of an ad sales company.
This is not what happened,
@nytimes
. It was never a comedy show and the violence originated with Proud Boys fans and followers.
This factually incorrect story abuses the passive voice and fundamentally misinforms the public.
Pennsylvania State University canceled a planned comedy event that was to be co-hosted by the founder of the Proud Boys after a demonstration against the speakers turned violent.
8.
@donn_rappaport
Donn Rappaport is former CEO at
@adstradata
& current board member of
@kidsafe
.
As an investor in
@safegraph
, he will make an enormous amount of money from ensuring women cannot access safe abortions.
9.
@aretraasdahl
Are Traasdahl is former CEO of an adtech co called
@Tapad
and now runs a food supply chain tech co called
@Go_Crisp
.
He is a
@SafeGraph
investor, a Norwegian — and stands to profit handsomely from American women losing our right to choose.
THIS IS BIG: Breitbart, which inspired the original
@slpng_giants
campaign, has continued collecting ad revenues by defrauding advertisers — including the ones that already blocked them.
It's *probably* how Breitbart has stayed in business all this time.
Multiple sources have reached out to me with one name: Kaz Nejatian, the COO of
@Shopify
, who keeps stepping in personally to protect Shopify accounts linked to terrorism & violence.
This is not a principled decision — it’s a political one.
@VictoriaSanchez
@wmata
@7NewsDC
Just dropping by to say this is pathetic. If you want to do a WMATA story, start with how it’s unaffordable and unaccountable to the public despite sucking up more & more taxpayer $$ each year.
This is all v frustrating.
Part of my work in taking on ad-funded disinformation is to educate advertisers on what responsible journalism looks like and convince them to re-allocate their spend.
How are we supposed to advocate for media when
@cnn
writes like The Daily Caller?
He’s talking about monetizing Twitter creators and enabling them to move it into “money markets.” He mentions debit cards and credit cards…?
I’m sorry if my tweets aren’t coherent, I’m literally struggling to comprehend
NEW: I’m thrilled to share that X (formerly known as Twitter) has officially lost its Brand Safety certification from
@tag_today
. 🤗
This is a big blow for X’s ads business — they’re def not getting those advertisers back now.
Two years ago,
@Mastercard
told me they wouldn’t shut down white supremacist orgs because it’s not their place to stop transactions unless they’re illegal.
(This is the transcript from the 2019 annual shareholder meeting.)
The OnlyFans hardcore ban was driven by puritanical payment processors like Visa & MasterCard threatening to cut them off. It’s moral censorship not a legal issue
The risk is real. PornHub got cut off and had to shift to crypto & ACH transfers only. 3/7
Etsy was one of the FIRST brands to block Breitbart back in 2016.
The fact that their ads were once again (in 2022!) sponsoring a Bannon project — against their explicit wishes — is the most important story in advertising today.
Elon’s take on brand safety:
•I want to get rid of the “bad” content
•Something something “more relevant ads”
•I don’t want things on here that are not funny or entertaining
He’s really uh, tweeting thru it, so to speak.
.
@iab
’s David Cohen asks for clarification about Elon’s comments on quality journalism.
Elon: “I’m not saying we should downplay journalists. I’m simply saying we should give voice/elevate the people. Vox populi.”
Not exactly comforting, given the quality of voices he’s into.
To be clear,
@TMobile
can advertise wherever it wants.
I just want a quick verbal clarification from the CEO that harassment and bullying aligns with
@TMobile
values. 🙏🏼
I was part of the effort to get Alex Jones kicked off every major tech and marketing platform in 2018. Even
@Apple
won’t fuck with him.
If Elon brings him back, I can’t emphasize how *easy* it’s going to be to convince the last of X’s advertisers to drop him.
CONCERNING: A search for Alex Jones' user handle shows that Twitter/X is serving ads alongside his content and content that tags him. I wonder how advertisers will feel about being associated with a man who owes $1 billion for denying that children were murdered at Sandy Hook.
Divine intervention aside, CNN provides no details on how the police found the baby. Did they hear its cries or did Jesus hold their hand and lead them to it?
And were they really eating at Papa John’s at the time? (
@indystar
reports they were at nearby Blaze Pizza.)
This is not
@auren
’s first rodeo when it comes to fucking up the lives of American citizens. His previous company
@LiveRamp
played a key role in Cambridge Analytica’s work in 2020.
Alexander Nix said so himself in his talk at a marketing conference in 2017. 👇🏼
.
@yoyoel
says new frameworks are coming incl. “reducing reach” of certain content.
Elon: “Big diff b/w freedom of speech vs. freedom of reach.”
Elon’s bringing back shadow banning, baby!
Elon: “We need to be tolerant of views we don’t agree w/, but they don’t need to be amplified.”
Who is “we” in this equation? What is the values framework here?
#BoycottUlta
is currently trending because the transphobes are mad about this video.
Sending Ulta a little love right now will help their social media team log positive sentiment and continue to make the case for visibly supporting the trans community.
Trans 👏 Girls 👏 Can 👏 Do 👏It 👏 All! Tune into the latest episode of The Beauty Of... where host
@DavidLopezzz
sits down with guest Dylan Mulvaney to chat all things girlhood 💝 Watch now:
In 2020,
@TMobile
CEO
@MikeSievert
publicly dropped Tucker Carlson over his racist rhetoric.
But as El/n Musk launches a targeted harassment campaign of public officials & ex-employees,
@TMobile
has remained a steadfast sponsor.
What’s up with that?
Interestingly,
@TMobile
is a member of
@wfamarketers
’s Global Alliance for Responsible Media initiative.
They (voluntarily) signed a pledge to remove economic incentives that promote bullying, harassment and the speech.
Have you changed your mind about that,
@MikeSievert
?
“We will actively suspend accounts involved in deception or trickery…so I think it’s going to be a good world. Don’t we believe in one person, one boat?”
*incoherence*
“…maybe this is a dumb decision but we’ll see”
My man!!!!
There is a German comedy about Hitler spontaneously resurrecting in the 2000s and walking around Berlin being confused and saying Hitler things. Ppl think he’s doing a weird/hilarious bit so they start taking pics with him, inviting him onto TV shows, etc.
Guess how it ends
“Forgiveness is a very important principle. As long as an account takes action and does not do bad things repeatedly, they won’t be permanently suspended.”
What are these “bad things” he keeps referring to and do they apply to Russia?
Four
@Kroger
workers have died of COVID-19 and their CEO has responded by bumping up his own salary from $12M to $21M, and ending hazard pay on Sunday.
At
@slpng_giants
, we’re emailing directly to ask why they can’t afford $2/hr for their workers.
Elon’s wrap up: “Moving civilization in a positive direction for the world…new users are signing up. More ppl are using Twitter for longer…hope you don’t feel like it’s a waste of time.”
Oh my god LOL
OK, HERE WE GO: In Nov. 2016, I co-founded Sleeping Giants. Today, we (
@catthekin
& I) are launching the next step of this journey: Check My Ads.
Our mission: to help you stamp out hate speech & racist websites from your digital ad buy all at once.
Linda will be resigning from her role at this company within months, if not weeks.
There’s no way to spin this to advertisers — and whatever Elmo is paying her, it’s not enough.
UPDATE:
@hootsuite
has fired the employee whistleblower who came forward to the public about her company’s partnership with ICE.
Solidarity with
@samelaanderson
. ✊🏻✊🏼✊🏽✊🏾✊🏿
.
@IAB
David Cohen: tell me more about this content moderation council
Elon: *sighs* “This is going to be a hard one to put together.
“But back to the community notes feature. I think that’s going to be v helpful…
….if you have thoughts, plz let me know.”
(He has no idea.)
So
@PayPal
just banned the KKK and Fox News chose to cover it w/ a
@foxandfriends
clip called "PayPal Bans Conservative Sites, Faces Backlash"
Because at
@FoxNews
, the KKK is just a conservative group.
Since we’re talking about Alex Jones, I’m currently watching Infowars on my
@Roku
.
Roku officially blocked Infowars from its platform in 2019. How did he get back on again?
@RokuSupport
Since we’re all talking about Daily Mail, here’s something new for ya:
Daily Mail has been secretly selling ads for
@GBNEWS
- a company it frequently covers & defends in its own pages - without ever disclosing that they’re actually GB’s business partner.
OMG I just realized that X uses
@stripe
to make payments — and that puts STRIPE on the hook for violating U.S. sanctions.
This means X's Stripe partnership is about to go bust.
Hey y’all, reporting from
@Mastercard
’s shareholder meeting where they cut my mic while I asked them if they’re aware neo-Nazi groups are raising funds in MasterCard’s network.
Hope I did you proud!!
Fox News without advertisers is OANN. And OANN just got dropped by its biggest distributor in April.
Join us as we tell ad industry executives to cut off Fox News.
Why are you so mad at me, Dr.Peterson? Is it because l’ve successfully used free market principles to demonetize:
-Steve Bannon
-Dan Bongino
-Seb Gorka
-Darren Beattie
And there’s nothing you can do about that other than seethe?
Bannon himself believed in 2018 that he would no longer be able to sustain his activities through digital ad revenues bc of
@slpng_giants
.
He was wrong. The adtech industry has allowed him to thrive using a series of middlemen & fraudy schemes.
SOME PERSONAL NEWS:
Here's a clip of Steve Bannon in footage shot for the new
@aliklay
doc
@TheBrinkFilm
talking about Sleeping Giants and our massive effect on Breitbart. This is absolutely something we never would have expected.
Big thanks to Steve-O for the info!
When I say Google is the biggest enemy of the press and the free world, I'm not exaggerating.
Look at this. I'm watching a
@YouTube
video on how to make naan when I notice a picture of Kelly Clarkson shilling gummy bears that helped her "shed belly fat."
I click.
“What do you have to say to brands that have paused?”
-I understand if ppl want to give it a minute.
-My observation is that content is actually improving - not getting worse.
-The best way to understand w/ what’s going on w/ Twitter is to use Twitter.
*repeats 2x*
Tucker lives by his own extremely fucked up moral compass, and about once a year, it briefly and randomly aligns with an actual working moral compass. He is not your friend nor your ally.
wow. Tucker Carlson just now destroys Sidney Powell after she claimed today that there was widespread, systemic fraud in the presidential election. Carlson says he invited her on the show, and asked to see any evidence she had supporting her claim, and she refused.
My newsletter holds adtech companies accountable for monetizing racism and white supremacy.
Subscribe and help us scare the shit out of the adtech industrial complex!
An entire multi-billion "brand safety" industry was spun up to save brands from advertising on Breitbart.
The fact that Bannon simply picked up & started a new website/brand — and walked right through the door again — is the biggest scandal in America.