Advertisers Are Blacklisting News Stories That Contain Forbidden Words (wsj.com) 77
Zorro shares a report from The Wall Street Journal: Companies are increasingly insisting their ads do not appear near articles or videos that contain any of a long list of words. Like many advertisers, Fidelity Investments wants to avoid advertising online near controversial content. The Boston-based financial-services company has a lengthy blacklist of words it considers off-limits. If one of those words is in an article's headline, Fidelity won't place an ad there. Its list earlier this year, reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, contained more than 400 words, including "bomb," "immigration" and "racism." Also off-limits: "Trump." Some news organizations have had difficulty placing Fidelity's ads on their sites, ad-sales executives said, because the list is so exhaustive and the terms appear in many news articles. Top 15 Forbidden Words: Dead, Shooting, Murder, Gun, Rape, Bomb, Died, Attack, Killed, Suicide, Trump, Crash, Crime, Explosion, Accident. "The ad-blacklisting threatens to hit publications' revenue and is creating incentives to produce more lifestyle-oriented coverage that is less controversial than hard news," reports The Wall Street Journal. "Some news organizations are investing in technologies meant to gauge the way news stories make readers feel in the hopes of persuading advertisers that there are options for ad placement other than blacklisting."
The use of lengthy keyword lists "is going to force publishers to do lifestyle content and focus on that at the expense of investigative journalism or serious journalism," said Nick Hewat, commercial director for the Guardian, a U.K. publisher. "That is a long-term consequence of this sort of buying behavior."
The use of lengthy keyword lists "is going to force publishers to do lifestyle content and focus on that at the expense of investigative journalism or serious journalism," said Nick Hewat, commercial director for the Guardian, a U.K. publisher. "That is a long-term consequence of this sort of buying behavior."
Order is important! (Score:3)
Top 15 Forbidden Words: Dead, Shooting, Murder, Gun, Rape, Bomb, Died, Attack, Killed, Suicide, Trump, Crash, Crime, Explosion, Accident.
All fifteen of those words in a single headline would either be the greatest or most depressing headline in human history.
Yaz
Re:Order is important! (Score:5, Funny)
Top 15 Forbidden Words: Dead, Shooting, Murder, Gun, Rape, Bomb, Died, Attack, Killed, Suicide, Trump, Crash, Crime, Explosion, Accident.
All fifteen of those words in a single headline would either be the greatest or most depressing headline in human history.
Yaz
No, this is absolutely brilliant! We should all include all these words in every post.
Then, we will have an ad-free Internet again!
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No, this is absolutely brilliant! We should all include all these words in every post.
Then, we will have an ad-free Internet again!
Excellent idea!
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The ads won't go away, you will just get the weirder ads on those posts.
The Anatidaephobia article featuring an Aflac ad.
Of course - the new way to get your ads seen may be to only present them at those articles where the "offending" words exists.
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Top 15 Forbidden Words: Dead, Shooting, Murder, Gun, Rape, Bomb, Died, Attack, Killed, Suicide, Trump, Crash, Crime, Explosion, Accident.
All fifteen of those words in a single headline would either be the greatest or most depressing headline in human history.
Yaz
No, this is absolutely brilliant! We should all include all these words in every post.
Then, we will have an ad-free Internet again!
Captain Synonym sez otherwise.
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It's also self-defeating. How long before we have a US version of the Grass Mud Horse or the Mahler Gobi Desert?
It wouldn't destroy the interent. It would simply put the businesses that demand some sort of weird purity out of business, and others would take note.
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Instead the new most popular words on the internet are, Dead, Shooting, Murder, Gun, Rape, Bomb, Died, Attack, Killed, Suicide, Trump, Crash, Crime, Explosion, Accident. deceased, gunfire, homicide, rifle, sexual assault, explosive, deceased, assail, seppuku, (can you even ban some ones name, how about all the other trumps floating about, they banned too, class action law suit right there),clash,felony,blast and are you fucking stupid with accident, what the fuck wrong with accident in the story, happen all
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Top 15 Forbidden Words: Dead, Shooting, Murder, Gun, Rape, Bomb, Died, Attack, Killed, Suicide, Trump, Crash, Crime, Explosion, Accident.
All fifteen of those words in a single headline would either be the greatest or most depressing headline in human history.
Yaz
No, this is absolutely brilliant! We should all include all these words in every post.
Then, we will have an ad-free Internet again!
This is redundent I suppose, but you win the internetz for the next ten years.
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I kinda want to try...
Today a Trump Attack Bomb Accident caused a Murder Shooting Dead Suicide Explosion while Rape Died during a Killed Crash Gun Crime...
It's harder than I thought it would be.
Re:Order is important! (Score:5, Funny)
sounds like a michael bay movie.
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sounds like a michael bay movie.
Oh for mod points.. n.n
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Whatever it is, it will be the "best ever" and "everyone will say so" and probably happen on 5th avenue.
Re:Order is important! (Score:5, Funny)
XX December 20XXX
The City of Townsville
Today, 750 people with dead batteries in their phones didn't get the news report that Main Street was closed due to a bomb threat to a building the President of the United States was visiting.
While disarming the bomb, Bomb Squad technician Felicia Cortarojo was forced to shoot, with a man armed with a knife who allegedly tried to rape her as she worked on the explosive device. Says Ms. Cortarojo: "He must have been watching me for a while, he made his move as I had both hands busy. What he didn't know is that I train with my issue gun every week, and have numerous medals, I have been shooting since I was a child"
Having shot the alleged rapist, she successfully disarmed the bomb, no one else died in the attack.
The suicide bomber, according to authorities, turned coward and ran out, leaving the armed bomb and a note behind. Captain Detcord of the Bomb Squad shares some of the content of the suicide note: "The capitalist pig Donald Trump must be stopped at all costs! He is a menace to the world! Fellow revolutionaries, join us in overthrowing this unjust government!"
While en route to the booking facility following his arrest, the suspect in this most serious crime of attempted murder by improvised explosive device perished in a road accident caused by a badger crossing the road. The driver swerved to miss the badger, and flew off a cliff. The van came to rest on the interstate below, where it was hit by a gasoline tanker and was consumed by fire before firefighters could arrive.
Well, did I pass? The hero is a girl, one of the bad guys is an Antifa loon, she used the Second Amendment to defend herself, no one but crims died, and it even has explosions at the end! All the words were used, in the order quoted.
I'll keep my day job, I know.
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Well, did I pass?
The badger was a nice touch. A+!
Yaz
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The driver of the prison transport was a criminal himself? And the driver of the gasoline tanker?
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The driver of the prison transport was a criminal himself? And the driver of the gasoline tanker?
I blame bad editing, I'm the worlds worst editor.
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The fact that Blossom, Bubbles, nor Buttercup showed up during any of this has me worried for them. Mojo Jojo is up to his mess again, probably.
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that day can't be far off...
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Its list earlier this year, reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, contained more than 400 words...
If that list didn't contain exactly 404 words which trigger their ad not being placed, someone really dropped the ball.
What is journalism? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: What is journalism? (Score:3)
Maybe this is just what the doctor ordered to counter sensationalist or clickbait news articles feigning that they're investigative? Or rather counterbalance. Something tells me that Fidelity wouldn't mind advertising for 60 minutes.
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"Journalism" that is sold to advertisers and not its readers is not actually journalism at all.
Car and Driver vs. Top Gear in a nutshell.
One can't badmouth advertised cars, the other routinely ate the hand that fed it and said it like it is. Mostly.
How I miss them.
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I agree to some extent but that is a problematic statement. Advertising has been a major source of income for journalism for a long time , so wasn't that journalism then? It was a bit compromised , often in subtle ways, but usable. Journalism actually went down the drain with the rise of the internet as advertising decreased. Now the best journalism is often done by independents.
Fidelity is just more upfront and amateurish about what Google ads is doing as standard practice: everyone with ads has can lose t
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The patron model seems to work for some news sites. The Guardian is a good example, it's profitable thanks to voluntary donations. There is some advertising but it's not awful, no auto-play video or shit like that. No paywall either, you can read for free.
New business idea (Score:3)
Wanna advertise your penis pump over a rape story? We got you covered.
Gun sale ad next to a school shooting? 50% off, you sick fuck.
And I'll put your "BOGO Abortion" ad right next to that Trump article about Mexicans.
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Gun sale ad next to a school shooting? 50% off, you sick fuck.
Close...
https://imgur.com/7UOWlfT.jpg [imgur.com]
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Re: New business idea (Score:2)
Hmm...do you guys have an AR57 for sale?
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...had to be Metairie..... it's Louisiana, what can I say.
Miss the bayou country. I did thoroughly enjoy that whole stretch from Biloxi to New Orleans.
This problem is self-correcting. (Score:2, Insightful)
If Fidelity doesn't want anyone to see its advertisements, then nobody will.
And nothing of value will be lost. Buh-bye, now.
I guess Marilyn Manson is out. (Score:2)
Murder cute happy rape
Murder cute happy, happy, happy rape, killall
Murder cute happy rape
Murder cute happy, happy, happy rape, killall
Sounds like a cheerful, happy song. :)
More words and phrases to add to the blacklist (Score:4, Interesting)
More words and phrases to ban:
* White supremacy
* Collusion
* Privilege
* Cis
* Fascist
* Intersectionality
* Microagression
* Misgender
* David Hogg
* Greta Thunberg
If our media weren't so concerned with clickbait virtue signaling, maybe they'd stop losing advertisers...
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Get woke, Go broke
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Lately we have seen the rise of fake woke brands like Nike and Gillette. On the one hand it's not a bad thing that they are supporting progressive ideas, but it is in part to distract from the sweatshops and how ridiculously overpriced their products are.
It can also backfire quite easily, as Pepsi discovered.
H. Bomberguy did a great video about the phenomena [youtu.be].
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It's not difficult to spot companies infested with virtue-signaling SJWs. Nike and Gillette are both on my banned-for-life never-purchase list.
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They aren't full of SJWs, that's the point. They are just adopting that stance because it sells more shoes and razors.
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Actually, it is a very bad thing that they are pretending to support progressive causes, because progressive causes are fundmentally flawed to the point of absurdity.
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Socialist
Social Democrat
Lincoln
Nixon
Anti-vaxxer
Speed Trap
Radioactive
Insurance
Liberal
Mad Men (Score:2)
Had an episode where Maytag wasn't too happy their washing machine ad was part of a television drama about Russian 'agitators'.
Reverse marketing is genius (Score:2)
Re: Reverse marketing is genius (Score:3)
Well you don't really "buy" anything from Fidelity, more like you invest, and even then, not necessarily in Fidelity. They're pretty good though, you can trade just about anything on their platform and their rates are cheap, or even free (I've still got 100 or so free trades for depositing $50k into my Fidelity account.)
whats the issue? (Score:3)
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It may actually be good (Score:1)
clickbait media did it to itself (Score:4, Informative)
They want to label everything racism and OMG every story to cause political division, people will react
The age of outrage stampedes on (Score:3)
They wouldnâ(TM)t have to even think of blacklists if they werenâ(TM)t mortally afraid of social media outrage campaigns.
Some additional suggestions (Score:1)
Seems ironic ... (Score:2)
Top 15 Forbidden Words: Dead, Shooting, Murder, Gun, Rape, Bomb, Died, Attack, Killed, Suicide, Trump, Crash, Crime, Explosion, Accident.
Judging by recent news/history, *all* those words seem to go together.
Welcome to Hard News (Score:2)
Welcome to Hard News, brought to you by Acme Products *indirectly* via the Kardashians. Kardashians. The show that Acme Products is willing to advertise on. And now, back to our crime report on the dead man who committed rape and murder with a gun and died during a bomb attack and shooting with an explosion that killed Trump by accident because his motorcade was nearby and had a crash. Was it really suicide?
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Kardashians should be a forbidden word.
Coming soon! (Score:3)
In the news tonight, stuff happened. Look at the kittens! So many kittens! OH! and there's some puppies...
Censorship (Score:1)
Sounds like a pretext for censorship. There are, regrettably, some horrific crimes that you might argue would make for less than family-friendly headlines, but regular news is going to talk about current events, and this degree of sanitization is the sort of thing we expect from totalitarian propaganda.
This is nuts on YouTube (Score:2)
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It's ridiculous but that's the way it is. I can wait for AI to improve enough so that it can detect actual bad sentences (threats, insults, etc) so that good content that contains the forbidden words can actually be posted.
ducklife (Score:1)
I welcome anything to stop clickbait... (Score:2)
And everything that came before it, including the kind of crap that Don Henley lampooned in his song "Dirty Laundry" [youtube.com]. Anyone who fights against the whole "if it bleeds, it leads" mentality is doing mankind a service.
More good news, less bad news (Score:2)
Sure, there are bad things that happen. But filling entire publications (have you seen The Guardian [theguardian.com] any time in the past 20 years?) with nothing but negativity cannot be good for people.
That does not mean that news content has to be "happy" or "cheerful" or focussed on trivia (lifestyle). But it does mean that there is more than enough good news that could be reporte
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"Freedom of the Press"? It has never existed. (Score:2)
Nothing much has changed since 1928, except that newspapers and other media outlets are owned by ever-bigger and more powerful conglomerates. Or even governments.
"Freedom of the press in Britain means freedom to print such of the proprietor's prejudices as the advertisers don't object to".
- Hannen Swaffer (British journalist) 1928
For those with more leisure, a longer quotation from even longer ago:
"There is no such a thing in America as an independent press, unless it is out in country towns. You are all sl
Or, just maybe, (Score:2)
Tell that particular advertiser to fuck off and replace them with someone else...
Good Move on Fidelity's Part (Score:1)
One reason I use Fidelity is because they are focused on investing and financial planning (and they are good at it), not being the latest company to jump on the SJW bandwagon. Seriously they're one of the last stubborn holdouts to keep themselves out of the hyper-partisan sociopolitical octagon.
I don't blame them for not wanting to be juxtaposed with controversial political content.
Ad Friendly News Articles (Score:2)
Fake news article of a hate crime written in a style to be ad-friendly.
Friday, Shreveport La. Family members are left bereaved today after a guy who doesn't like people with dark skin, sprayed metal things out of his bang-bang stick in a church for people who have skin tones that are brown. He was taken down by police officers after ending the life of 15 civilians. In the man's home, police officers discovered lots of devices that go boom-boom and memorabilia dedicated to a former German leader with one
Who can blame them? (Score:2)
Good. Who wouldn't do that? (Score:2)
If you have a company and have ability to associate or disassociate your advertisements with certain products, wouldn't you care to do so?
"Mass Shooting in Montana! 10 Children Killed" -- Advertisement below: "By Fidelity Life Insurance for Your Whole Family!"
or
"Camp Trump Pepper Sprays Resistant Immigrant Children" -- Advertisement below: "RAID! Kills Roaches Dead!"
I think these people have seen enough memes for "poorly placed ads" and are trying to nip it in the bud.
How can this possibly be BAD ? (Score:2)
I for one cannot see how any part of this predicted change could possibly be bad.