NEW: I get that all eyes are on Facebook right now, but let me explain why we need to be talking about @PubMatic too.
When FB helps disinfo articles go viral, it sends ungodly amounts of traffic to those website. That’s where platforms like @pubmatic cash in.
.@PubMatic invests a lot in TELLING their clients they’re keeping their ads off disinfo.
But in reality, they’re direct partners w/ Epoch Times, an outlet so toxic even FB cut its advertising privileges last year.
And I assure you - this is no accident.
Last May, I flagged up Epoch Times as a disinformation outlet for @pubmatic.
Here’s their Director of Imventory confirming the partnership and walking me through his brand safety process - which is a Google search and him concluding “eh, it’s not so bad.”
This didn’t sway him at all - he insisted that Epoch Times was just a right-leaning site based on his one source, AllSides.com.
Btw, what our guy at @pubmatic probably doesn’t realize is these “ratings” websites end up wheeling & dealing w/ the outlets they’re supposedly rating.
AllSides(.)com is itself in a financial relationship with EpochTimes - likely thru kickbacks.
But as of Friday, I no longer believe @pubmatic is working with Epoch Times because of incompetence.
It’s bc Epoch Times one of the top sources of traffic on the internet thx to FB!!!
I believe @bozinny & @PubMatic are putting their own profits ahead of their own clients.
So my question is, how much advertising revenues has @pubmatic sent to Epoch Times over the past few years?
Particularly the election fraud disinformation that led to the J6 Capitol Hill riot?
And how many more disinformation outlets is @PubMatic monetizing with its clients’ budgets while assuring them they would never?
For now, here’s what we know:
1.) @Pubmatic’s brand safety process is a white guy checking a free website on the internet
2.) Pubmatic doesn’t have an internal def of “fake news” - $ cannot protect your brand from it
3.) Pubmatic is financially vested in disinfo - not clients
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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.