Breitbart Banned From Ad Network For Hate Speech

[Smaulgld]

http://fakenews.news/2016/11/23/breitbart-banned-appnexus-ad-network/

[Origanalist]

Ok. I clicked the link. It sent me to another address for the story, which sent me to another address for the story. I never went there.

[Smaulgld]

Ok. I clicked the link. It sent me to another address for the story, which sent me to another address for the story. I never went there.
It goes to bloomberg. Reuters had the story too citing bloomberg.There's not much to the story other than the ban

[timosman]

Proud and Unprejudiced: A Look Into OutNexus’ 2016 Pride Week
http://blog.appnexus.com/2016/proud-and-unprejudiced-a-look-into-outnexus-2016-pride-week/

[fcreature]

This is standard procedure for an ad network. Unless you can prove it was politically motivated, this is a complete non-story that I'm sure Trumpkins will jump on as proof that everyone is out to get them.

[timosman]

This is standard procedure for an ad network. Unless you can prove it was politically motivated, this is a complete non-story that I'm sure Trumpkins will jump on as proof that everyone is out to get them.

This is a PR move on the side of AppNexus. The revenue will jump by 2.7% this quarter.

[juleswin]

Ok. I clicked the link. It sent me to another address for the story, which sent me to another address for the story. I never went there.

Mine took me to worlds net daily then to bloomberg.


AppNexus takes a stand as bigger rivals, Google and Facebook, face scrutiny over their handling of 'fake news'
by Mark Bergen
November 22, 2016 — 3:42 PM EST

AppNexus Inc., operator of one of the biggest digital advertising services, has barred Breitbart News from using its ad-serving tools because the conservative online publisher violated its hate speech rules.

AppNexus scrutinized Breitbart's website after U.S. President-Elect Donald Trump tapped Steve Bannon, former executive chairman of Breitbart, to be White House chief strategist last week. The digital ad firm decided the publication had breached a policy against content that incites violence, said AppNexus spokesman Joshua Zeitz.

"We did a human audit of Breitbart and determined there were enough articles and headlines that cross that line, using either coded or overt language," he said.

Breitbart News Network Chief Executive Officer Larry Solov said in an e-mailed statement that Breitbart "has always and continues to condemn racism and bigotry in any form."

AppNexus's decision comes while the two largest digital ad sellers, Alphabet Inc.'s Google and Facebook Inc., grapple with the rise of fake news -- misleading or intentionally deceptive articles that appear in social news feeds and online search results. Last week, both companies said they would pull advertising support from sites that spread "misinformation."

continue reading https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-22/major-advertising-technology-company-bars-breitbart-news-for-hate-speech

It seems like they lost ads coming from one of the three big ad players. But what can you do, its the free market and google and facebook ad services can occupy the space left by AppNexus.

[fcreature]

This is a PR move on the side of AppNexus. The revenue will jump by 2.7% this quarter.

Why? Are advertisers suddenly going to pay more for the same ad inventory now?

Or are you suggesting that more publishers will be bringing their inventory to this network now, as a result? Why would they do that if they're earning more elsewhere? Just because they "dissed" Breitbart?

Ad networks only care about inventory and selling said inventory as efficiently as possible. Aka for the highest price / click through rate.

[timosman]

Or are you suggesting that more publishers will be bringing their inventory to this network now, as a result? Why would they do that if they're earning more elsewhere? Just because they "dissed" Breitbart?

Yes.



Ad networks only care about inventory and selling said inventory as efficiently as possible. Aka for the highest price / click through rate.

Virtue signaling is important too.

[Smaulgld]

Why? Are advertisers suddenly going to pay more for the same ad inventory now?

Or are you suggesting that more publishers will be bringing their inventory to this network now, as a result? Why would they do that if they're earning more elsewhere? Just because they "dissed" Breitbart?

Ad networks only care about inventory and selling said inventory as efficiently as possible. Aka for the highest price / click through rate.

Ad networks and advertisers have always had exclusions to content that they would not monetize. The more exclusions however the smaller the pool of advertisers. Seems to me many companies are less concerned about profits and more with promoting a political agenda- which is their right

[fcreature]

Ad networks and advertisers have always had exclusions to content that they would not monetize.

Exactly. Hence the terms of service.


The more exclusions however the smaller the pool of advertisers.

It's also the fact that a lot of excluded content does not monetize well - at least in a way that is not deceitful (or outright scamming) and without completely destroying the experience of the user.


Seems to me many companies are less concerned about profits and more with promoting a political agenda- which is their right

I suppose that is true in some cases. But like I said, without proof that this was a politically motivated action, this is a complete non-story designed to agitate Trumpkins. This type of action happens every day to countless companies. 99.99% of them don't make a scene claiming it was a politically motivated action. This is the same type of thing as a minority not getting a job and then claiming it was due to their minority status rather than their qualifications... something that Trumpkins would surely protest.

[Smaulgld]

Exactly. Hence the terms of service.



It's also the fact that a lot of excluded content does not monetize well - at least in a way that is not deceitful (or outright scamming) and without completely destroying the experience of the user.



I suppose that is true in some cases. But like I said, without proof that this was a politically motivated action, this is a complete non-story designed to agitate Trumpkins. This type of action happens every day to countless companies. 99.99% of them don't make a scene claiming it was a politically motivated action. This is the same type of thing as a minority not getting a job and then claiming it was due to their minority status rather than their qualifications... something that Trumpkins would surely protest.

Breitbart didnt make a big deal of it- Bloomberg broke the story

[AZJoe]

But like I said, without proof that this was a politically motivated action

While denying it had anything to do with politics, AppNexus spokesperson Josh Zeitz then goes on to openly admit the decision was based solely on viewpoints on the site. Zeitz said "AppNexus' call had nothing to do with any kind of misinformation; it was based solely on the inflammatory views it found on the site." http://mashable.com/2016/11/22/breitbart-banned-from-appnexus/#kI_80tEqJqqO

It also comes just as AppNexus laid off 13% of its workforce and is gearing up for an IPO, so it may be a publicity stunt hoping to garner publicity before its IPO. http://www.businessinsider.com/appnexus-pre-ipo-layoffs-restructure-2016-10

[fcreature]

it was based solely on the inflammatory views it found on the site.

Again... standard procedure.

Go look at the terms of any major service. Most have prohibitions against "racist", "hateful", and "harassing content".

https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/1348688?hl=en#Content_that_advocates_against_an_in dividual_group_or_organization


Content that advocates against an individual, group, or organization
What's the policy?

Google believes strongly in the freedom of expression, but also recognizes the need to protect the quality of the AdSense network for users, advertisers, and publishers.

Google ads may not be placed on pages that contain harassing or bullying content, or on content that incites hatred or promotes violence against individuals or groups based on race or ethnic origin, religion, disability, gender, age, veteran status, or sexual orientation/gender identity. Additionally, Google ads may not appear on content that incites or advocates for harm against an individual or group.

https://advertise.bingads.microsoft.com/en-us/resources/policies/restricted-and-disallowed-content-policies


Disallowed content policies
Areas of questionable legality
Defamatory, slanderous, libelous or threatening content
Hate speech
Peer-to-peer file sharing
Political and religious content
Sensitive advertising
Suffering and violence
Unregulated user-generated content
Usenet

[Jamesiv1]

Bunch of left-wing liberal hippies.

Take a bath hippies!!!!

[juleswin]

Ad networks and advertisers have always had exclusions to content that they would not monetize. The more exclusions however the smaller the pool of advertisers. Seems to me many companies are less concerned about profits and more with promoting a political agenda- which is their right

A few years back, we had Anita Sarkeesian of the feminist frequency host complaining that torrent websites are sexist towards women because they only had porn and escort ads on their site. She believed it was sexism, well it turned out that it wasn't because of sexism or desire to discourage women from the site. The site had those ads because no mainstream ad seller wanted to touch torrent sites with a 10 foot pole because of the reputation they had.

Well, that was in 2010 ish before Trump anything. In the free market, ad companies get to pick and choose which website they deal with and reputation has a lot to do with it. This is the way it has been for a while now.

[timosman]

A few years back, we had Anita Sarkeesian of the feminist frequency host complaining that torrent websites are sexist towards women because they only had porn and escort ads on their site. She believed it was sexism, well it turned out that it wasn't because of sexism or desire to discourage women from the site. The site had those ads because no mainstream ad seller wanted to touch torrent sites with a 10 foot pole because of the reputation they had.

Well, that was in 2010 ish before Trump anything. In the free market, ad companies get to pick and choose which website they deal with and reputation has a lot to do with it. This is the way it has been for a while now.

Peer pressure. There is no accountability in how the marketing dollars are being spent. When was the last time you clicked on an ad?

[fcreature]

A few years back, we had Anita Sarkeesian of the feminist frequency host complaining that torrent websites are sexist towards women because they only had porn and escort ads on their site. She believed it was sexism, well it turned out that it wasn't because of sexism or desire to discourage women from the site. The site had those ads because no mainstream ad seller wanted to touch torrent sites with a 10 foot pole because of the reputation they had.

It's all about quality of inventory. And torrent sites are bottom of the barrel. Perfect candidate for sketchy affiliate marketers with popunders and such.

As I'm sure you can imagine, people going to torrent sites to illegally download copyrighted material aren't very keen on buying things. The demographics aren't necessarily very great in a general buying sense, either.

Often you'll find this lower quality traffic can even be very click-happy. This is a double edged sword. First, the quality of the traffic blows. Second, they are clicking more often thus costing advertisers more money for shittie

The lower quality your traffic is, the more you'll see digital marketers using sketchy / deceitful tactics and eventually they will resort to outright illegal practices. There is a ton of money to be made doing this (> thousands per day) and there will always be people willing to cross that line for the money.

Legitimate ad networks don't cater to this type of content which is specifically why you see them excluded in most TOS.

Something being of "political nature" doesn't prevent it from also being hateful / racist / violent / etc / whatever. It's most certainly the right of the ad network to determine what type of content they want their ads to be shown on.

This being political content is not proof that the action taken was because it was of a certain political belief. The quote provided above by AZjoe used to suggest it was politically motivated even supports the fact that it most likely wasn't.

[Cleaner44]

No problem, just use Taboola as they obviously have very low standards if any as demonstrated by their placement on the Huffington Post, a website constantly filled with hate speech.

[kahless]

Breitbart didnt make a big deal of it- Bloomberg broke the story

They probably do not want to call attention to it as not to end up losing any other service providers they are using. This is not just Breitbart and we always knew it was coming seeing it in dribs and drabs but the level of censorship or retribution against free speech this past week has been really unprecedented and seems to be ramping up.

I suppose it is a combination of retribution over a Clinton loss and the established lost the ability to control the political narrative. They started ramping up with labeling real news sites as fake news. Then the retribution started by hosting providers and Ad networks. Then you have social media accounts on Twitter/FB being blocked, Amazon censoring political book reviews and Reddit dropping subreddits due to speech.

I wonder what is next the great USA firewall like China has or maybe Zuckerbergs new China censorship tool will be coming here or maybe something bigger in 2017.

[kahless]

This being political content is not proof that the action taken was because it was of a certain political belief. The quote provided above by AZjoe used to suggest it was politically motivated even supports the fact that it most likely wasn't.

They had no issue with them during their history but suddenly when political news and views censorship is like shit hitting the fan everywhere this last week they get blocked. A pro-Trump site with Bannon at it's helm, no doubt it was politically motivated.

[fcreature]

They had no issue with them during their history but suddenly when political news and views censorship is like $#@! hitting the fan everywhere this last week they get blocked. A pro-Trump site with Bannon at it's helm, no doubt it was politically motivated.

That's nice and all but it's nothing more than conjecture. What happened to burden of proof? Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that it isn't a possibility but it's just ridiculous to go around making claims like this without any proof of it.

Anyway, as I'm sure you know, websites can publish content today that differs from the content it published yesterday.

[kahless]

That's nice and all but it's nothing more than conjecture. What happened to burden of proof? Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that it isn't a possibility but it's just ridiculous to go around making claims like this without any proof of it.

Anyway, as I'm sure you know, websites can publish content today that differs from the content it published yesterday.

I visit Breitbart a few times a day every day for years now and they are more toned down now than they have been for long time. There is rampant retribution and censorship this last week against Conservative news sites listing them as fake news, hate speech or equating them to Nazi websites. While this is going on that same week their long time Ad provider drops them over hate speech. The same week the Progressives have been bashing the site and Bannon with false claims of anti-semitism. That is way too coincidental.

The censorship across social media sites and Conservative news site retribution this past week has been unprecedented. It started with labeling Conservative sites fake news and went right to Ad Network drops, hosting providers temp bans until content is removed, banning social media accounts, subreddits, etc.

[AZJoe]

Again... standard procedure.
Go look at the terms of any major service. Most have prohibitions against "racist", "hateful", and "harassing content".

Of course. "Hate speech" - the all purpose cover to suppress viewpoints. That would be the AppNexus determination of "hate speech" of course.
The AppNexus whose CEO Brian O'Kelley sent an email to every employee on election night expressing his disappointment with Trump's win.
And according to Adexchanger the move was instigated specifically by O'Kelley, and the AppNexus "human team" began looking into Breitbart only a week ago. Adexchanger reports O'Kelley directed his team to demonstrate "hate speech" from Breitbart. Looks like a predetermined decision seeking to find a pretext to execute.

Surely there is no subjectivity there on the part of the AppNexus official speech approver.

Ban a political based website with 45 million unique readers and 19 million unique visitors each month, but say the New York Times advocating truth police censorship brigades, total surveillance state, torture apologist, invading foreign nations, bombing, killing by the thousands, impoverishing and destroying lives by the millions, even joking about about assassinating Trump -- all that is perfectly fine because hey the NYT supports leftists and status quo government candidates.

Yes that is obviously clearly objective, and no political based influence in decision at all.

Would respect it more if they just came out and said they disagree with the viewpoints and decided to take a stand rather than phony pretexts.

https://adexchanger.com/platforms/alt-right-delete-appnexus-ceo-brian-okelley-endorsed-breitbart-ban/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3963164/AppNexus-bans-Breitbart-ad-network-citing-hate-speech.html

[fcreature]

Of course. "Hate speech" - the all purpose cover to suppress viewpoints. That would be the AppNexus determination of "hate speech" of course.
The AppNexus whose CEO Brian O'Kelley sent an email to every employee on election night expressing his disappointment with Trump's win.
And according to Adexchanger the move was instigated specifically by O'Kelley, and the AppNexus "human team" began looking into Breitbart only a week ago. Adexchanger reports O'Kelley directed his team to demonstrate "hate speech" from Breitbart. Looks like a predetermined decision seeking to find a pretext to execute.

Surely there is no subjectivity there on the part of the AppNexus official speech approver.

Ban a political based website with 45 million unique readers and 19 million unique visitors each month, but say the New York Times advocating truth police censorship brigades, total surveillance state, torture apologist, invading foreign nations, bombing, killing by the thousands, impoverishing and destroying lives by the millions, even joking about about assassinating Trump -- all that is perfectly fine because hey the NYT supports leftists and status quo government candidates.

Yes that is obviously clearly objective, and no political based influence in decision at all.

Would respect it more if they just came out and said they disagree with the viewpoints and decided to take a stand rather than phony pretexts.

https://adexchanger.com/platforms/alt-right-delete-appnexus-ceo-brian-okelley-endorsed-breitbart-ban/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3963164/AppNexus-bans-Breitbart-ad-network-citing-hate-speech.html

Wait a minute. Is AdExchanger now on the unofficial list of approved news sources around here? Also since when are anonymous "internal sources" to be trusted? I feel like I've seen people bash these tactics a dozen times over the last couple of days. Or is that only valid when it's in relation to something that is not pro-Trump?

Everything else you posted is still pure conjecture. It may be true. It may not be true. I don't know.

I'll believe an ad network (which generates revenue by selling ad space) decided to just say no to that amount of revenue over pro-trump politics when there is actually proof of it. Not until then.

[AZJoe]

Everything else you posted is still pureconjecture. ...
I'll believe an ad network (which generates revenue by selling ad space) decided to just say no to that amount of revenue over pro-trump politics when there is actually proof of it. Not until then.

Wait a minute. The ad network already said no to "that amount of revenue". They already banned Breitbart. So that isn't hard to believe they would say no to the revenue. They already did it!
Further AppNexus openly proclaimed it was for subjective ideological reasons of "inflammatory views" stating "AppNexus' call had nothing to do with any kind of misinformation;it was based solely on the inflammatory views it found on the site." So they admit it was for ideological reasons. So that is not hard to believe either because they acknowledged it.
So AppNexus did in fact turned own that amount of revenue, and did it fact publicly state they did it for ideological reasons of subjective "inflammatory views" labels. Yet it is impossible to deduce that their political bias had any influence at all in their subjective ideological "inflammatory views" assessment? That doesn't even pass the straight face test.

BTW, How is AppNexus using its own subjective standard for defining and determining "inflammatory views" conjecture? You claim someone else is forcing them to make their determination? And how is the AppNexus not banning NYT conjecture? They haven't done that, despite all the items mentioned. It merely illustrates the subjective nature inherent in their decision making and how it is not objective but inextricably intertwined with and stained by their own subjective viewpoints. Their subjective "inflammatory views" crusade is inherently subjective.

It is possible that the was no political based aspect to the decision to ban the political news site; it is also possible to get struck by lightning tonight. To conclude their banning of a major political based news site with a massive market of 19 million unique visitors every month for openly admitted ideological basis of subjective "inflammatory views" is not tainted in any manner by their own political bias is to deny the reality of human nature itself. To conclude their own internal political bias has no influence whatsoever in their decision is what is mere conjecture. That is not to say it is for certain the decision had a political based motive. However to conclude that the decision may or likely has a political aspect to the subjective ideological "inflammatory views" based decision is rational sound deductive logic.

[timosman]

AppNexus is not in business to make money. They need at least $1.5B per year in revenue to break even (2500 personnel) I doubt the S1 will show anything close to that.