CONFIRMED: @Cloudflare is protecting the Proud Boys’ website.
Let’s talk about CEO @eastdakota, whose MO is being a “free speech absolutist” until he cracks under public pressure — and he always does.
After The Daily Stormer/Andrew Anglin published an article glorifying the death of Heather Heyer, @Google and @GoDaddy dropped his hosting immediately. He then went straight to @Cloudflare, which is a *big defender* of "free speech" no matter what.
So we went after him HARD.
Someone had just *died* but @Cloudflare stayed silent. Then on August 15th - 3 days after the rally - they released this statement saying they planned to keep serving The Daily Stormer.
I can only imagine the amount of pressure @eastdakota faced over the next 24 hours...
...because the next day, @Cloudflare dropped The Daily Stormer. Why? Because Matthew was in a bad mood that day. Guess it's all about free speech until the pressure gets under your skin.
(FYI this is lifted from a talk I give on how not to do corp crisis comms.)
One year later, a shooter posted his diatribe on 8chan before heading to attack the mosque in Christchurch. Once again, we went hard after @eastdakota to stop protecting 8Chan.
In response, he told @juliacarriew he wished he had a "magic wand." A fucking wand.
Less than 24 hours later - I'm guessing after investors called and told him to shut it down - he flipped like a pancake.
This isn't leadership. It's a CEO who keeps learning the hard way he's not living out some libertarian fever dream. In the real world, we hold you accountable
I have no doubt in my mind @eastdakota is waiting for someone to die again before he quits protecting the Proud Boys. Do not let him.
If he says a protector of free speech, remind him he is not. He is just another CEO beholden to his investors — and he will crack again.
*and either afraid or unable to handle the PR fallout of his own shitty decision-making, I might add.
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Here's the scoop: Google has been pushing a new shiny AI product called Performance Max on its clients.
PMax runs ads & auto-optimizes for you. But it doesn't let you control your ads at all — not even to *exclude* your ads from key categories, like YouTube for Kids.
On the other hand, PMax doesn't filter out ads for YouTube for Kids either.
So in between videos titled "Can you name these vegetables?" kids have been watching ads featuring car accidents, violent explosions and people drowning.
In Jan. 2023, The Donald started running ads through an ad network called "Publir."
Turns out Publir's co-founder is (was?) the co-owner and CTO of RealClearPolitics. He was running both companies at the same time — and maybe still is.
At first, I thought Publir might be his own independent business or side hustle. His LinkedIn says he launched the company in 2021 after leaving RealClear in 2020.
But as I dug in, I realized that this is not the case at all.
HOLY SHIT. @WSJ is reporting that ~80% of the ads @YouTube serves across the web have violated their own terms of service — and are therefore subject to refunds.
This is...a devastatingly huge deal. @GoogleAds is about to be out billions of $$.
Google has never been weaker than it is RIGHT now. Their search ads business - their main source of $$ - has been tanking since ChatGPT. They're facing 2 antitrust lawsuits.
Now, turns out they've been caught in a multi-billion dollar scam?? Oh my god.
Let me explain the scam itself:
Advertisers pay YouTube good money to run their ads on before or after a YouTube video, on the YouTube platform.
But sometimes, YouTube runs these ads videos embedded on 3rd party websites, like you see here:
TheDonald is WAY too toxic to be running ads. So how is happening?
An adtech middleman called Publir (@publirllc) — which has connected them to every major ad exchange by hiding TheDonald under various fake names & accounts.