February 14, 2018
By Susan Duclos - All News PipeLine
By
the middle of 2017 we at All News PipeLine knew that the attacks
against Independent Media had a good chance to destroy and bankrupt many
Independent Media websites, as we have consistently documented how
social media platforms were shadow-banning and censoring conservatives,
specifically those that supported Donald Trump against Hillary Clinton
in the 2016 general presidential election cycle.
Google's video
platform YouTube was and still is demonetizing conservative political
content, and putting entire channels on restricted mode, meaning anyone
that had their settings set to restricted could not even see or search
video from those content creators. Our video channel was one of those
that saw all our videos disappeared in restricted mode, despite no
cursing, nudity, or any other action that violates YouTube's terms of
service.
Google also manipulated their search engine algorithms,
making it harder to find Independent Media sites on the first pages of
their search engine results.
ANP knew it was going to hit
critical mass simply by watching ad revenue dwindle away from the Google
Adsense program, which many use to be able to afford to run maintain
their websites, including paying the bills so website owners can afford
the time and research needed to produce original material. Google allows
three ads per page, and as traffic in a non-presidential election year
normally drops between 10 and 20 percent, yet the revenue dropped by
over 60 percent, plus all video revenue disappeared, paid by Google as
well, it became clear it wasn't just traffic Google was attempting to
limit, but they were somehow paying less for the ads that were being
served.
CONFIRMATION GOOGLE SECRETLY BLACKLISTING IM SITES
Breitbart News has been given physical proof
that Google employees are targeting them by threatening advertisers,
telling them that if they allow their ads on Breitbart, they will harm
their "brand safety." These employees have gone as far as to collude
with a group called "Sleeping Giants" who set up a campaign to encourage
their users to harass Breitbart advertisers until they agree to no
longer advertise or promote the website.
Breitbart News has obtained a screenshot (withheld to
protect our source) that shows Google ad account manager Aidan Wilks
advising another company – a client of Google’s – that advertising on
Breitbart may impact their “brand safety.”
In the
screenshot, Wilks can be seen linking Google’s client to the website of
Sleeping Giants, a far-left organization that has repeatedly targeted
Breitbart and other conservative-leaning news sites with false claims of
racism and bigotry.
The screenshot also shows Matthew
Rivard, another employee at Google, advising colleagues that Wilks’
message was a “nice template” for those who wished to “call out” the
issue to clients. Rivard recommends that the message should be repeated
for “other key accounts.”
Until April 2017, Rivard held
the position of head of industry for performance advertising at Google.
This made Rivard one of the go-to people for Google’s advertising
clients. Rivard’s Linkedin page currently lists him as head of industry
for branded apparel and e-commerce.
Harmeet Dhillon,
the Republican national committeewoman for the California GOP and
attorney for James Damore, who has also seen the screenshot, said that other Google AdSense users should be concerned about secret blacklisting.
“This communication from Google’s advertising department raises
troubling questions about whether the company’s ideological bias extends
beyond the employment claims covered in our lawsuit, to Google’s
business practices toward AdWords publisher users as well,” said
Dhillon.
“If there are indeed concerted efforts
at Google to undermine the advertising revenue of disfavored publishers
(an allegation YouTube is already facing in court through its abrupt
demonetization of Prager University videos), then this conduct may give
rise to additional legal claims. At a minimum, AdSense users may question whether they are being targeted for secret blacklisting as described here.”
That explains so much. If Google is threatening "brand safety" and
certain employees are actively working with the far left groups to force
the higher paying ads to stop advertising on Independent Media
websites, then it stands to reason that traffic in a non-presidential
election year can drop the standard 10-20 percent, yet revenue would
tank by 60-70 percent, threatening to knock a lot of us right out of
business.
The bad news is, they are succeeding as we have
recently reported, two established conservative sites, Red Flag News,
and Right Wing News, have now shuttered, citing the censorship by Google
and social media.
Here is how Sleeping Giants has targeted Breitbart (and others):
Then their 137K followers start targeting those advertisers,
as can be seen in their Twitter feed,
harassing them until they stop advertising, and Google employees are
actively promoting and linking their advertisers to the Sleeping Giants
campaign to help them censor and demonetize Breitbart.
That is
not the only way Google is targeting Breitbart and other
conservative-leaning, Independent Media, sites either, as they are also
keeping a "spreadsheet," and as
Bretibart states "
They
have people trawling each article on the site [Breitbart] to see if
they can find comments that might violate their policies in order to
justify not trafficking ads."
Breitbart may be big enough to withstand this type of campaign, but smaller websites cannot.
Many
sites, including ANP, started looking for other ad services to
supplement income, to replace other ads, and found there were services
out there geared toward Independent Media, run by people that believed
in free speech and were vehemently opposed to big tech censorship. Many
of us also
added donation options, including ANP, LifeSite News, Campus Reform, Government Slaves, Daily Signal and Daily Caller, just to name a few.
The ultimate goal of looking for alternatives to Google Adsense is so that Independent Media can survive without Google.
NEW NETWORK FOR INDEPENDENT MEDIA BRAVELY GOES TOE-TO-TOE WITH GOOGLE
The pro-life website
LifeSite News,
in reporting on the Breitbart confirmation of the secret blacklisting
being done by leftist Google employees, offers the following suggestion:
"With that wide-open, subjective description
it would appear that
most conservative websites should prepare to eventually be blacklisted
by Google and therefore begin now to seek alternative sources of ad
revenue."
Enter
Commodity Ad Network, who has decided to go courageously go toe-to-toe with Google.
ANP heard of Commodity Ad Network from
SGT Report
before they launched and after reading why they were creating an ad
network which they call "a disruptive ad network of creative minds who
speak out against the powers that be," specifically in support of the
"alt media message," we did a little research and communicated with them
and decided if someone was going to put so much effort and financial
resources into helping Independent Media stay alive, we were going to
jump onboard. That decision was also based on the fact that someone well
known, and trusted, in the Independent Media community,
Steve St. Angelo, from SRS Rocco Report is part of their team.
We
rolled out one ad per page, slapped it above the fold, and they began
showing around February 1, 2018. Rather than making website owners wait
for a net 45, net 60 or net 90 day turnover for payment, they are set up
to pay the 15th of the following month, and if the dashboard data is
anything to go by, their one ad will
nearly triple the revenue Google is now bringing Independent Media websites in each month with three ads.
Their blog also lists all the sites that jumped on board
to give them a chance as they were trying to create something to help
all Independent Media, with links to each, and their Commodity Ad
Network website also scrolls each website across the screen, with links,
under their "Alt-Media Websites Participating in the Commodity Ad
Network," category.
It gets better. Not only are they going
toe-to-toe with Google on advertising, but their next stage will be
creating their own search engine focused on alt-media content. Then they
plan to set up a social media network and a video platform, stating
"Content creators will be able to set up their own channels and publish
videos without us restricting their free speech."
We will use our adserver platform to serve ads on all of
these platforms as well. All our services will follow our philosophy of
100% privacy and zero censorship.
When we have people like The CEO of News Corp., Robert Thompson,
actively pushing Google and Facebook to censor Independent Media websites
so that MSM sites can make more money via ads, someone standing up for
Independent Media, creating a network geared just for alt
media/Independent Media, including "websites outspoken against the
powers that be," "prepper and survivalist websites," along with precious
metal websites, oil and energy research and analysis, and financial
commentary, listed as part of their key niches, might literally save
your favorite Independent Media websites.
When we started ANP, we had people that helped us, like
Steve Quayle who offered guidance, answered questions, helped us launch and links to us regularly, and
Mike Adams of Natural News
that linked to us, quoted us and advertised with us after Google,
social media and big tech kicked their censorship campaigns after the
presidential election into high gear, and readers that have stuck with
us since the very beginning, so it stands to reason that when a service
like Commodity Ad Network launches, with the sole goal of helping to
mitigate the financial hardships that censorship has caused so many of
us, that we would jump on board with both feet and try to help make it a
success.
Via their blog:
Please, reach out to your favorite alt-media websites
not listed above and ask them to consider joining the Commodity Ad
Network — A Network of the Good Guys, for the Good Guys.
You can forward them our application form link and our short intro video.
Similarly, if you know of companies whose products and services might
be useful to visitors of alt-media websites, please, forward them our advertiser application form and our short intro video.
The more the merrier!
Published on Feb 14, 2018
https://youtu.be/U-0FPrHIHvw
BOTTOM LINE
Breitbart
has now been able to confirm what many of us already knew just by
looking at our Google Adsense dashboard, that leftist employees within
the company are actively targeting conservative Independent Media
websites and secretly blacklisting them, while targeting advertisers and
threatening their "brand safety" if they allow their ads to show up on
the IM websites. It is more important than ever for every single person
that reads these websites, everyone that runs an Independent/Alt media
website and advertisers that want their ads shown to everyone, not just
those leftist employees at Google "approve" of, to unite, and help each
other.
Otherwise, all that will be available will be what the mainstream media wants you to know.
Note to Readers-
If we make it through March when we start seeing the revenue generated
by the new ad network, we may just have a chance to turn big techs' bias
back against them and come through this stronger, louder and more
powerful, together. February 2018 has been the most brutal month yet due
to the censorship we have been battling against this past year, so any
extra readers may be able to spare for donations is greatly appreciated.
