Over and over this piece puts together an (admittedly compelling) narrative that seems to be alluding to this man and the organizations he creates/leads are a state-sponsored action to shift public opinions on issues. However in each, just taking the first for example, the piece details that they identified these 12 accounts responsible for 65% of misinformation on COVID-19, but never confirms or denies this. Is/was that true?
Similarly, the piece makes vague references to Twitter being a cesspit of racism, and that a left-leaning magazine was killed off for being... I dunno, too left? Not left enough? It's kind of left in limbo. But again, no engagement with whether or not these were correct actions on the part of advertisers based on the known facts.
The assertion of the piece seems to be something like "This man heads organizations that influence advertisers to pull money from what they deem as 'hateful' sources" and okay... are they? Because whether they are or not is a big part of it. It's not controversial for major or even lesser known brands to not want to associate with things like COVID-19 denial/general anti-vax sentiments, nor is it strange that they wouldn't want their products advertised alongside white supremacist statements. One could make the argument that informing them of such so they can take action to mitigate that is universally good: it defunds hate, and it permits a company to present it's stated values better.
The fact that they won't engage with the actual content of all these users and groups they're claiming have been wronged, instead focusing entirely on the source of the claims is a bit strange and frankly undermines the entire work. I totally agree that if this is indeed someone in charge of public money being used to sway the opinions of the masses, even in a direction I might agree with, that's worth knowing and should be properly disclosed. But again, the shyness around the content of the accounts in question is somewhat damning.
Similarly, the piece makes vague references to Twitter being a cesspit of racism, and that a left-leaning magazine was killed off for being... I dunno, too left? Not left enough? It's kind of left in limbo. But again, no engagement with whether or not these were correct actions on the part of advertisers based on the known facts.
The assertion of the piece seems to be something like "This man heads organizations that influence advertisers to pull money from what they deem as 'hateful' sources" and okay... are they? Because whether they are or not is a big part of it. It's not controversial for major or even lesser known brands to not want to associate with things like COVID-19 denial/general anti-vax sentiments, nor is it strange that they wouldn't want their products advertised alongside white supremacist statements. One could make the argument that informing them of such so they can take action to mitigate that is universally good: it defunds hate, and it permits a company to present it's stated values better.
The fact that they won't engage with the actual content of all these users and groups they're claiming have been wronged, instead focusing entirely on the source of the claims is a bit strange and frankly undermines the entire work. I totally agree that if this is indeed someone in charge of public money being used to sway the opinions of the masses, even in a direction I might agree with, that's worth knowing and should be properly disclosed. But again, the shyness around the content of the accounts in question is somewhat damning.