Lyft, HP and Uber Won’t Advertise on Breitbart - Amazon Remains
We’ve known for years that Breitbart and Stormfront cultivate the same audiences and propagate many of the same cultural and philosophical sentiments. It’s also relatively easy to see that simply from reading comments at the site, perusing the articles, and checking how many authors publish on same themes at known White Supremacist outlets. Why Amazon and others won’t advertise on Stormfront but will advertise at Breitbart is a mystery to me.
Online ad sales aren’t something that typically capture the imagination. But throw in corporate shaming with some political wrangling, and the topic gets downright interesting.
After the election of President Donald Trump in November, a secretive organization called Sleeping Giants popped up on Facebook and Twitter. Its mission: “To stop racist websites by stopping their ad dollars.”
Sleeping Giants’ main target has been Breitbart News, which made headlines Wednesday after students at University of California at Berkeley protested an appearance by one of its columnists. The right-wing news and opinion site, formerly run by senior Trump aide Steve Bannon, has been criticized as a platform for conspiracy theories and racism. Bannon himself called Breitbart “the platform of the ‘alt-right,’” a loose, online movement of people promoting the notion of “white identity,” including white supremacists and those advocating for a separate white homeland.
Sleeping Giants decided to get companies to block their ads from appearing on the site. And in doing so it learned that because of the way online ads are sold, few advertisers know where their ads appear.
More: Lyft, HP won’t advertise on Breitbart. Uber, Amazon remain
Uber has now joined the side of decency:
CONFIRMED: Big, big day. @Uber has blocked Breitbart from their media buy! Thank you @travisk for making the call to stand against hate!
— Sleeping Giants (@slpng_giants) February 4, 2017