PPC Marketers: Don’t Wait For Permission To Blacklist Breitbart News
You might accidentally be funding white nationalism in America — here’s how you can change that
*Update: Over 350+ companies have now confirmed blacklisting Breitbart, from Kellogg’s to Warby Parker. Thanks to Sleeping Giants, the grassroots campaign to encourage American businesses to stop funding Breitbart, the effort is growing!
We don’t have much time. It may not be long before the prominent white nationalist and neo-Nazi Steve Bannon is running the White House.
Bannon derives his money and influence from his role as executive chairman of Breitbart News, a “news” site that broadcasts and promotes racist, misogynistic, homophobic, anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim rhetoric.
As White House chief strategist, he will continue to run and profit from Breitbart but with the added power to facilitate political and legal decisions that will actively harm and erode the hard-won civil rights and protections of our fellow Americans. Our own customers will most certainly be among them.
Bannon has been formally denounced by 15,000 lawyers, 169 members of Congress, and the Anti-Defamation League.
Now it’s our turn. If you or someone you know runs ad operations at your business, do this quick pulse check:
“Does my business benefit from the disenfranchisement, oppression and discrimination of religious, ethnic, sexual minorities, women or any kind of immigrant?”
If the answer is “no” — and LORD, I hope it is — don’t wait for permission. You don’t need to have a whole goddamn strategic discussion about it. Just go into your Adwords account now and pull your display and remarketing ads off Breitbart.com.
Here, I already pulled the help desk article for you:
Breitbart News is fully covered under the 1st amendment — but that doesn’t mean we have to help fund it.
This is a tangible gesture of protest.
Once you’ve done this, leave a response here or a write an open letter somewhere else. Encourage your fellow PPC marketers to follow your lead.
The noise we make will pressure ad exchanges to finally blacklist this site along with other hateful, extremist “alt-right” properties. We are their partners and when we raise hell, they WILL pay attention.
This isn’t business as usual. Let’s get some muscle together and pull the rug out from underneath this sick, hateful movement.
Update: AppNexus has blacklisted Breitbart. “This blacklist was solely about hate speech violation,” says their spokesperson Joshua Zeitz.
