InfoWars Blacklisted By Major Advertisers After CNN's Guerrilla Activism

CNN has taken it upon themselves to contact companies whose advertisements have been played on the InfoWars-linked Alex Jones Channel on YouTube, resulting in a flood of major brands blacklisting the channels for future ad spending. 

CNN has discovered ads on InfoWars' channels from companies and organizations such as Nike (NKE), Acer, 20th Century Fox, Paramount Network, the Mormon Church, Moen, Expedia (EXPE), Alibaba (BABA), HomeAway, Mozilla, the NRA, Honey, Wix and ClassPass.

Even an ad for USA for UNHCR, a group that supports the UN refugee agency UNHCR, asking for donations for Rohingya refugees was shown on an InfoWars YouTube channel.

Many of the brands -- including Nike, Moen, Expedia, Acer, ClassPass, Honey, Alibaba and OneFamily -- have suspended ads on InfoWars' channels after being contacted by CNN for comment. The companies, with the exception of Alibaba, which declined to comment, said they had been unaware their ads were running on The Alex Jones Channel. CNN discovered the HomeAway advertising shortly before publishing this story, and has not yet received a response from that company. 

The various brands purchased ad campaigns from marketing agencies or directly through YouTube parent company Google - which direct advertisements at specific demographics. Companies often don't know where their ads are displayed, however they can use exclusion filters to black list channels or content they don't wish to advertise with.

Scores of conservative and "conspiracy" YouTube channels have been hit with strikes and bans over the last several weeks following the Parkland Florida School Shooting. In particular, videos suggesting that survivor David Hogg was being coached or is a paid crisis actor have been struck from the platform and measures taken against uploaders. 

YouTube admitted they had been overly aggressive in their recent enforcement, blaming "newer members" of its 10,000 large team of moderators. 

"As we work to hire rapidly and ramp up our policy enforcement teams throughout 2018, newer members may misapply some of our policies resulting in mistaken removals," wrote a YouTube spokesman in an email. "We’re continuing to enforce our existing policies regarding harmful and dangerous content, they have not changed. We’ll reinstate any videos that were removed in error."

The Alex Jones Channel received two "strikes" from YouTube during the controversy, however the second strike was removed hours later with no explanation. Similarly, InfoWars fixture Dr. Jerome Corsi's YouTube channel was permanently banned on Thursday - only to be restored hours later with a similar lack of explanation. 

And while YouTube may have overstepped its bounds, CNN has taken the attack straight to the bottom line by encouraging advertisers to blacklist Alex Jones related content. 

Starving Jones To Death

This isn't the first time advertisers have blacklisted InfoWars. Last February, the InfoWars website was dropped by San Francisco advertising agency AdRoll the day after Jones did an interview with the (failing) New York Times - costing Jones an estimated $5 million per year of income. 

AdRoll told Jones that they were dropping him due to the fact that products are "retargeted" to the InfoWars website - a practice of relevant advertisements jumping from site to site to follow consumer browsing habits. 

Still, one can't help but wonder if the political ideology of the San Francisco-based ad agency had something to do with the decision: several high level AdRoll employees have donated money to democratic causes over the past several elections. CEO Aaron Bell is also a huge fan of Bill Gates - having grown up in Washington and worked at Microsoft where he stalked the Billionaire at their annual employee barbecue.

Interestingly, AdRoll's head of retargeting, Peter Clark, contributed to the "Democratic Hope Fund" in 2015.

InfoWars isn't the first conservative outlet to suffer from politically motivated advertising hits. In November 2016, Breitbart.com was dropped by AppNexus - one of the largest digital ad agencies in the world. 

“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,” said Josh Zietz of AppNexus. “This blacklist was solely about hate speech violation."  

In any case, with InfoWars facing attacks on all fronts, it looks like they'll be down to water filters and health supplements going forward as liberal activists such as CNN target their primary source of income.

Comments

cheka Arnold Sun, 03/04/2018 - 10:37 Permalink

broward sheriff stand down order confirmed

[url]http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/broward/article20301528…]

The Broward Sheriff’s Office captain who initially took charge of the chaotic scene at a Parkland high school where 17 people were killed told deputies to form a perimeter around the deadly scene — which they did instead of going in to confront the shooter, according to a partial BSO dispatch log obtained by the Miami Herald.

Capt. Jan Jordan, commander of BSO’s Parkland district, gave the order, the log shows, identifying her by her police call sign.

Broward Sheriff Scott Israel has said BSO training and nationwide active-shooter procedure call for armed law enforcement officers to confront shooters immediately rather than secure a scene.

The document raises fresh questions about the department’s handling of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

had to repost to prevent forum slide operation by xxxxx

In reply to by Arnold

MagicHandPuppet jbvtme Sun, 03/04/2018 - 11:17 Permalink

I don't watch Alex Jones (but I do like Paul Joseph Watson a lot).

Nevertheless, I do love it when the cockroaches willingly run into the spotlight while attempting to contaminate the world.  A special thanks goes out to Nike, Moen, Expedia, Acer, ClassPass, Honey, Alibaba and OneFamily for outing yourselves as piece of shit virtue signaling scum who will never see another penny from me or my family. Keep on sucking.

Who's next?

In reply to by jbvtme

MK ULTRA Alpha TBT or not TBT Sun, 03/04/2018 - 11:16 Permalink

It's strange, Jones is pro-Zionist. married two Jewish women in a row and what is happening the Jewish left wing are leading the take down of conservative sites. It's similar to the Jewish led boycott of Germany in the 1930's.

Across the entire web, Facebook is installing a Chinese censorship model to impress the Chinese. Facebook was kicked out of China. Zuckerberg has made trip after trip to impress Xi. Zuckerberg carried Xi's book around quoting it to Americans in speeches etc. just like Mao's Little Red Book.

I boycott Facebook and anyone who uses Facebook. I don't believe the metrics Facebook uses for number of users and Facebook has been caught falsifying advertisement data.

We are not being protected from 1st Amendment violations from these firms. Both Facebook and Google are in violation of the Bill of Rights to conform to a global Chinese model of censorship for access to the Chinese market.

Facebook has been manipulating elections in many countries. The report about Facebook manipulation of foreign elections has been confirmed by Facebook as a consultant fee. Manipulation of foreign elections by US corporations is against US law. Facebook is a political hit man for hire. It's just like CNN being paid a bribe from countries who want favorable coverage.

It's unfortunate the Obama administration wasn't pro-civil liberties and Trump administration is pro-business. But something has to be done, I suggest Facebook, Google and Microsoft be broken up to allow competition in this space.

In reply to by TBT or not TBT

PT cheka Sun, 03/04/2018 - 10:50 Permalink

From the link http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/broward/article20301528…

Last video, demolish the existing building and build another one on a different part of campus.
Where has that happened before?
Is this something Wolfgang Halbig might like to look at or is he still busy?

I don't know, I live on the other side of the world, it's just that, ummmm, ummmm, yeah ...

In reply to by cheka

Buckaroo Banzai Pandelis Sun, 03/04/2018 - 10:48 Permalink

You don't understand how internet advertising works. YouTube places ads according to all kinds of algorithms. The Mormons are just saying, exclude us from Infowars.

Most likely there are plenty of advertisers who don't give a shit one way or the other about InfoWars, and who will be happy to let Youtube serve up their ads on the Infowars channel. Which means CNN is just grandstanding here, while giving shitlib corporations like Nike (which is evil incarnate) the chance to put on their cringeworthy virtue-signaling act.

In reply to by Pandelis

Leveraged Algorithm macholatte Sun, 03/04/2018 - 10:46 Permalink

What really needs to happen is to take down all the FCC rules on broadcasting where we can pick and choose content we pay.  That would result in direct funding to what free people want to see and no funding for the garbage we do not - like the black entertainment channel and Ted Turner among many... and the fuckers at CNN.

In reply to by macholatte

cheka ACP Sun, 03/04/2018 - 10:32 Permalink

 

broward sheriff stand down order confirmed

[url]http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/broward/article20301528…]

The Broward Sheriff’s Office captain who initially took charge of the chaotic scene at a Parkland high school where 17 people were killed told deputies to form a perimeter around the deadly scene — which they did instead of going in to confront the shooter, according to a partial BSO dispatch log obtained by the Miami Herald.

Capt. Jan Jordan, commander of BSO’s Parkland district, gave the order, the log shows, identifying her by her police call sign.

Broward Sheriff Scott Israel has said BSO training and nationwide active-shooter procedure call for armed law enforcement officers to confront shooters immediately rather than secure a scene.

The document raises fresh questions about the department’s handling of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14.

 

=======================

duplicate

 

In reply to by ACP

TBT or not TBT strannick Sun, 03/04/2018 - 11:01 Permalink

Making the atrocity worse through passivity, a prog mind would figure, might create enough tragedy to bring on the government expanding policy changes they yearn for, everywhere and always .     Government is their faith .    Ruined families and full morgues from Oakland to Baltimore to sunny Parkland are th eggs that have to be broken to get people behind the utopian omelette .  

In reply to by strannick

Dapper Dan TBT or not TBT Sun, 03/04/2018 - 11:12 Permalink

Palantir, the company that knows too much 

 

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/palantir-company-article-1.3851809

 

Am I my cousin’s keeper?

That’s the question to ask in the story, still emerging, of Peter Thiel’s Palantir. The giant private surveillance company, created by a tech billionaire obsessed with making himself immortal and destroying his “enemies” in the press, is contracting with American police forces to secretly provide them with systems — designed for our wars of foreign occupation — that supposedly find criminals before they commit crimes, partly by mapping out family and social networks.

In reply to by TBT or not TBT

Victor999 Sun, 03/04/2018 - 10:33 Permalink

Youtube and CNN are going down a very dangerous path - and taking us with them.  This has to be stopped - whether you like Alex Jones or not, free speech is at high risk now - not only from government, but from corporate interests.

PT Victor999 Sun, 03/04/2018 - 10:39 Permalink

Why can't we just write our own search engines?  I mean, seriously, are Google's algorithms REALLY that special?  How many times I have typed stuff in and very quickly got to WTF territory, as in "WTF???  How TF do those links bare any correlation to the words I typed in???"  Sometimes I can provide a direct quote and yet find no links to those quotes in the first few pages, but very quickly the links point to all sorts of bizarre, irrelevant shit.

In reply to by Victor999

PT Sun, 03/04/2018 - 10:35 Permalink

So does this mean you WILL have to buy his vitamin pills* and MREs* in order to support him?

* I haven't watched him for a while so I can't quite remember what he sells.