Tag: advertising

FTC Settlement: Ad Agencies Agree to Stop “Brand Safety” Collusion to Defund Media Outlets

Three of the world’s biggest advertising conglomerates have agreed to stop colluding to defund media outlets whose politics they didn’t like.

The Federal Trade Commission and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, joined by seven other states, filed a complaint and simultaneous settlement against Dentsu US, GroupM Worldwide (WPP’s media-buying arm), and Publicis on April 15, accusing them of running what amounts to a coordinated censorship operation through the advertising supply chain.

Starting in 2018, these agencies, which collectively control over $81 billion in ad-buying power, agreed to adopt identical “brand safety” standards that treated so-called “misinformation” as a category of content too dangerous for any advertiser to touch.

They did this through two industry groups: the American Association of Advertising Agencies’ Advertiser Protection Bureau, and the World Federation of Advertisers’ Global Alliance for Responsible Media, better known as GARM. The result was a shared “Brand Safety Floor” that could starve publishers of revenue without any single company having to take public responsibility for the decision.

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Big Advertisers Settle Case with FTC over Leftist Censorship in Advertising and Suspected Collusion Against Breitbart, Other Conservatives

Three of the world’s largest advertising companies settled Wednesday with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over claims that they colluded on policies to combat alleged misinformation that denied advertising revenue to conservative publishers such as Breitbart News.

The FTC said in a complaint filed on Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas that WPP, Dentsu, and Publicis coordinated on policies that limited the number of ads that ran on sites with content that the industry had identified as misinformation. The policy resulted in fewer ads running on media outlets such as Breitbart News, punishing outlets that ran content that was “lawful but disfavored.” The filing explained that these advertisers sought to impose common “brand safety” standards across the digital advertising industry. The FTC stated that the ad agencies, with their primary competitors, Omnicom and IPG, operated through their trade associations to establish a “Brand Safety Floor” to combat “misinformation.”

“The ad agencies’ brand-safety conspiracy turned competition in the market for ad-buying services on its head,” FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson said in a written statement. “The antitrust laws guarantee participation in a market free from conduct, such as economic boycotts, that distort the fundamental competitive pressures that promote lower prices, higher quality products and increased innovation.”

“As we explain in our complaint, the brand-safety agreement limited competition in the market for ad-buying services and deprived advertisers of the benefits of differentiated brand-safety standards that could be tailored to their unique advertising inventory,” the FTC chairman said.

Ferguson continued:

This unlawful collusion not only damaged our marketplace, but also distorted the marketplace of ideas by discriminating against speech and ideas that fell below the unlawfully agreed-upon floor. The proposed order remedies the dangers inherent to collusive practices and restores competition to the digital news ecosystem.

A spokesman for WPP said in a statement that the agreement “reflects our existing and ongoing commitment to provide our clients with unbiased advice as they decide where to place their media.” A spokesman for Dentsu said the company was “fully committed to operating transparently, with integrity, and in strict compliance with all applicable laws.” Publicis had not responded to a request for comment from the New York Times.

The FTC said in its filing that the ad agencies “coordinated” through the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), an entity created by the World Federation of Advertisers, of which the three advertisers are members.

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Our Post-Truth, Post-Trust World

That we inhabit a post-truth world seems to accepted wisdom. But that’s only half of it. We also live in a post-trust world. In a post-truth world, everything is shaped by the implicit goals of the entity claiming to state the “truth,” as the entire point of claiming to state the “truth” is to persuade the target populace to agree to something favorable to the issuer of the claimed “truth.”

In other words, the “truth” as something that has no intentional spin of self-interest no longer exists. What is passed off as “truth” is spin intended / designed to serve the interests of those doing the spinning.

This is the definition of propaganda and marketing, which are pure expressions of self-interest, and they’ve been around since the dawn of civilization, as persuading others to do what serves your private interests is much lower cost / more profitable than having to modify their behaviors with force.

The first step in the con of propaganda and marketing is to win the trust of the mark. This is a fascinating process, as some people are willing believers and others are skeptical, and so the trust campaign must speak to both the skeptics and those primed to embrace the message for reasons that have less to do with the entity issuing the message and more to do with their internal beliefs.

The trick with skeptics is to present persuasive evidence–the “facts.” These can be first-person accounts, scientific studies, or something presented as self-evident. The con artist presents the facts as if they are objective and the mark is invited to “decide for yourself:” the con artist claims he has no intent to persuade.

This is humorously illustrated in Melville’s classic novel The Confidence-Man.

The rise of the collection of data and the scientific method introduced the idea of “objective truth” that was based on facts collected from observations that were repeatable by anyone able to isolate the same variables. In other words, these truths could be verified by anyone using the same tools to collect data that isolated the same variables, so it wasn’t a private truth, it was a public truth everyone had to accept as fact.

The power of “objective fact” was too good to pass up, and so manipulating the metrics of data collection and analysis became the new territory of developing trust and establishing “truth” to serve private interests. Sample sizes were kept small, subjects were selected for their likelihood of yielding the desired data, and analytic tools weeded out outliers that undermined or contradicted the pre-selected “results.”

As McLuhan observed, The medium is both the message and the massage, and so the synthetic media that broadcast the human voice and visual images captured our attention and imagination in ways the written word could not. Now we have AI, which mimics human speech so engagingly that we attribute it with human characteristics: intelligence, emotions, empathy, etc.

With social media and smartphones, these media/ AI technologies have scalable visibility and virulence: they are ubiquitous (everywhere) and extremely contagious / virulent, spreading quickly through vast populations.

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Associated Press runs paid PR ads for Chinese telecom Huawei as CCP seeks to influence UN agency

The Associated Press is running paid public relations advertisements on X and on the wire service’s own website on behalf of Huawei as the blacklisted Chinese telecom behemoth and the CCP seek influence over a key United Nations tech agency.

The U.S. government has long pointed to the national security threat posed by Huawei and has sought to limit the firm’s spread inside the United States and around the world. At the same time, the AP took cash from the Chinese company to promote Huawei’s efforts to burnish its image as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) seeks to influence the UN’s International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and increase the penetration of Chinese telecoms and networks worldwide.

The paid tweet by the AP — sent on Mar. 12 and now boasting more than 75 million views — highlighted Huawei’s links to ITU and its efforts on the world stage, and a paid article from Huawei published by the AP promoted Huawei’s efforts in AI. The tweets are clearly marked as “Paid advertisement.”

“National Champion” firms

The U.S. National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence stated in 2021 that “national champion” firms such as Huawei help “lead development of AI technologies at home” and “advance state-directed priorities that feed military and security programs.”

“China is the most capable competitor in the AI space, and aims to displace the U.S. as the global AI leader by 2030,” the Office of the Director of National Intelligence assessed in March. “China is driving AI adoption at scale — both domestically and internationally — by using its sizable talent pool, extensive datasets, government funding, and burgeoning global partnerships.”

Michael Sobolik, a China expert and senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, told Just the News that “the Associated Press claims to provide ‘news without an agenda,’ and says that its mission is ‘journalism, not profit margins.’ It’s hard to square those praise-worthy goals with taking money from a CCP-controlled company to boost its propaganda.”

“The AP isn’t alone in doing this either. It’s the latest in a number of American reporting outlets that willingly become propaganda conduits for Beijing,” Sobolik added. “There’s no First Amendment in China, but CCP-controlled companies can push their message in America for the right price.”

Neither Huawei nor the Associated Press responded to a request for comment from Just the News.

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Court backs city censorship: Ontario appeal ruling blocks ‘Woman = Adult Female’ ad

The Ontario Court of Appeal has ruled against the Christian Heritage Party of Canada (CHP) in a high-profile free speech case, siding with the City of Hamilton’s decision to reject a controversial bus shelter ad.

The case stems from a 2023 attempt by CHP to purchase advertising space on Hamilton transit shelters. The proposed ad featured a smiling woman alongside the message: “Woman: An Adult Female.”

City officials blocked the ad, arguing it could offend transit users, a decision CHP challenged through judicial review before ultimately appealing to Ontario’s top court.

That challenge has now failed.

In its decision, the Court of Appeal upheld the city’s authority to control messaging in public advertising spaces even where that control intersects with constitutionally protected expression.

The ruling effectively shuts down CHP’s argument that a political party has the right to publicly promote what it describes as the biological, biblical, and dictionary definition of a woman in a public forum.

CHP leader Rod Taylor blasted the decision, calling it a blow to fundamental freedoms.

He argued that the ruling undermines core Charter protections, including freedom of speech, press, conscience, and association, and warned that ideological pressure is now influencing both legislatures and the courts.

The party says it will continue advocating for what it calls “truth and freedom,” despite the setback.

In today’s Canada, even defining a word can land you in court — and still lose.

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Reid Hoffman Funds SICK Propaganda Ad Showing Republicans SNATCHING Girlfriends For Deportation

A resurfaced ad funded by Reid Hoffman, the LinkedIn co-founder mired in the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, depicts a fictional Republican congressman abducting and threatening a young woman on a date simply because she “looks like” an illegal immigrant—despite her being a U.S. citizen.

The vile spot, part of a series of fear-mongering propaganda from the Progressive Action Fund, aims to terrify voters into opposing America’s long-overdue crackdown on illegal immigration, painting border security as a threat to everyday citizens.

The ad opens with a young couple wrapping up a pleasant date. As the man walks his girlfriend to her car, black-clad agents suddenly appear, grabbing her and declaring, “She’s coming with us.”

Confused and outraged, the boyfriend demands, “What are you talking about? Who are you?”

Enter the bald, suit-wearing “Republican congressman,” who smugly announces, “I’m your Republican congressman. Now that we’re in charge, we’re rounding up illegals.”

When the boyfriend protests that she’s a citizen born in the U.S., the congressman retorts, “I don’t care. She looks like one of them.” He then callously adds that she’ll have “lots of company” in an El Salvador prison.

This disgusting piece of propaganda isn’t new—it’s from June 2024, during the height of the election cycle when Democrats were desperate to block Trump’s return. The Progressive Action Fund, a Democrat-aligned super PAC, produced a whole series featuring this creepy “Republican congressman” character invading private moments to enforce caricatured conservative policies.

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The Lost Dog That Made Constant Surveillance Feel Like a Favor

Amazon picked the Super Bowl for a reason. Nothing softens a technological land grab like a few million viewers, a calm voice, and a lost dog.

Ring’s commercial introduced “Search Party,” a feature that links doorbell cameras through AI and asks users to help find missing pets. The tone was gentle despite the scale being enormous.

Jamie Siminoff, Ring’s founder, narrated the ad over images of taped-up dog posters and surveillance footage polished to look comforting rather than clinical. “Pets are family, but every year, 10 million go missing,” he said. The answer arrived on cue. “Search Party from Ring uses AI to help families find lost dogs.”

This aired during a broadcast already stuffed with AI branding, where commercial breaks felt increasingly automated. Ring’s spot stood out because it described a system already deployed across American neighborhoods rather than a future promise.

Search Party lets users post a missing dog alert through the Ring app. Participating outdoor cameras then scan their footage for dogs resembling the report. When the system flags a possible match, the camera owner receives an alert and can decide whether to share the clip.

Siminoff framed the feature as a community upgrade. “Before Search Party, the best you could do was drive up and down the neighborhood, shouting your dog’s name in hopes of finding them,” he said.

The new setup allows entire neighborhoods to participate at once. He emphasized that it is “available to everyone for free right now” in the US, including people without Ring cameras.

Amazon paired the launch with a $1 million initiative to equip more than 4,000 animal shelters with Ring systems. The company says the goal is faster reunification and shorter shelter stays.

Every element of the rollout leaned toward public service language.

The system described in the ad already performs pattern detection, object recognition, and automated scanning across a wide network of private cameras.

The same system that scans footage for a missing dog already supports far broader forms of identification. Software built to recognize an animal by color and shape also supports license plate reading, facial recognition, and searches based on physical description.

Ring already operates a process that allows police to obtain footage without a warrant under situations they classify as emergencies. Once those capabilities exist inside a shared camera network, expanding their use becomes a matter of policy choice rather than technical limitation.

Ring also typically enables new AI features by default, leaving users responsible for finding the controls to disable them.

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Real Estate Company Slammed for Blatantly Anti-White Super Bowl Commercial

On the field, Super Bowl LX looked a lot like the last time the Seattle Seahawks won the NFL championship.

Indeed, Sunday’s 29-13 win over the New England Patriots called to mind Seattle’s 43-8 drubbing of the Denver Broncos in early 2014, when the Seahawks’ defense smothered an overmatched opponent in a game that never really had a competitive phase.

How fitting, therefore, that the real estate company Redfin — much to the chagrin of users on the social media platform X — gave Super Bowl viewers a commercial reminiscent of the race-mongering of President Barack Obama’s years, albeit with a predictable update tailored to the age of President Donald Trump.

Not to mix sporting metaphors, but the Redfin ad, shorn of its subversive politics, could have hit a home run.

The ad began by showing two young girls, perhaps in their early teens, from two different families. Each girl looked forlorn as she contemplated her family’s move into a new home.

It bears noting, only because of the ad’s politics, that the first girl was Hispanic and the second girl was white. One suspects that most viewers would not have noticed as much if not for the subsequent injection of politics.

The two girls crossed paths about 20 seconds into the ad. At that point, the white girl’s dog barked at the Hispanic girl, which kept the two girls from saying hello.

Even then, however, nothing seemed amiss. In fact, the young white girl, having waved at a group of girls on bicycles and received only snarky comments in return, seemed the lonelier and more ostracized of the two.

The anti-white racism began approximately 24 seconds into the ad, when the Hispanic girl’s father tried to strike up a conversation about an impending thunderstorm with an older white man next door. Naturally, the older white man, who flew an American flag and had a pickup truck parked in his driveway, ignored him.

Then came the drama. During the storm, the white girl’s dog escaped her home. A frantic search ensued.

Happily, the young Hispanic girl found the dog and returned it to its grateful owner. The white girl hugged her dog’s rescuer. From there, the two girls rode bikes together and presumably became friends.

Again, shorn of its politics, the ad would have delivered a wonderful message.

Instead, Redfin decided to make a not-so-subtle political statement that undoubtedly appealed to virtue-signaling liberals everywhere.

“America could use a neighbor just like you,” the ad’s final message read.

The company even highlighted that message when it posted the ad on X.

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P&G agrees to stop deceptive marketing of Crest toothpaste to kids

Procter & Gamble (P&G) agreed to change how it markets Crest fluoride toothpaste to young children following an agreement with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Under the agreement, P&G’s advertising aimed at children under age 6 must reflect age-appropriate amounts of toothpaste. The changes took effect this month.

Health authorities, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the American Dental Association (ADA), and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), recommend that children under age 3 use no more than a “smear” of fluoride toothpaste, and that children ages 3 to 6 use only a “pea-sized” amount.

Paxton said Crest’s marketing materials often showed toothbrushes covered with a full strip of toothpaste, implying that amount was appropriate for children.

Research cited in the case shows such images prompt parents to use excessive amounts of toothpaste. A 2024 study published in Nature found parents routinely overloaded toothbrushes by six to seven times the recommended amount.

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Meta Chose Revenue Over Policing Chinese Scam Ads, Documents Show

Meta knowingly tolerated large volumes of fraudulent advertising from China to protect billions of dollars in revenue, a new investigation from Reuters unveiled this week. Internal documents show executives prioritized minimizing “revenue impact” over fully cracking down on scams, illegal gambling, pornography and other banned ads.

Although Meta platforms are blocked inside China, Chinese companies are allowed to advertise to users abroad, according to Reuters. That business grew rapidly, reaching more than $18 billion in revenue in 2024—about 11% of Meta’s global sales. Internal estimates showed roughly 19% of that revenue, more than $3 billion, came from prohibited or fraudulent ads.

Meta documents reviewed by Reuters describe China as the company’s top “Scam Exporting Nation,” responsible for roughly a quarter of scam ads worldwide. Victims ranged from U.S. and Canadian investors to consumers in Taiwan. An internal presentation warned, “We need to make significant investment to reduce growing harm.”

In 2024, Meta briefly did just that. A dedicated China-focused anti-fraud team cut problematic ads roughly in half, from 19% to 9% of China-related revenue. But after what one document described as an “Integrity Strategy pivot and follow-up from Zuck,” the team was asked to pause its work. Meta later disbanded the unit, lifted restrictions on new Chinese ad agencies, and shelved additional anti-scam measures.

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