For multiple years, since not long after Barack Obama insisted he was “fundamentally” remaking America away from the democratic republic it has been for centuries, ad agencies have colluded to deliberately target for harm a number of independent online news sources.
They made unsubstantiated claims of “misinformation,” “malinformation,” “disinformation” and more and steered their clients away from purchasing advertising time and space from those companies, cutting their revenues.
Now it’s ending. The Federal Trade Commission said the agencies “have agreed to a proposed order that will stop the alleged coordinated conduct and prevent similar conduct from occurring in the future.”
Andrew N. Ferguson, FTC chief, said, “The ad agencies’ brand-safety conspiracy turned competition in the market for ad-buying services on its head. The antitrust laws guarantee participation in a market free from conduct, such as economic boycotts, that distort the fundamental competitive pressures that promote lower prices, higher quality products and increased innovation.”
The complaint had charged that the agencies’ brand-safety agreement limited competition in the market for ad-buying services and deprived advertisers of the benefits of differentiated brand-safety standards that could be tailored to their unique advertising inventory.
“This unlawful collusion not only damaged our marketplace, but also distorted the marketplace of ideas by discriminating against speech and ideas that fell below the unlawfully agreed-upon floor. The proposed order remedies the dangers inherent to collusive practices and restores competition to the digital news ecosystem,” he said.
The actual complaint charged that starting in 2018, “major U.S. advertising agencies WPP, Publicis and Dentsu—who buy digital ad inventory on behalf of advertisers—unlawfully colluded to impose common ‘brand safety’ standards across the digital advertising industry.”
They, together with competitors Omnicom and IPG, decided to target what they described as “misinformation.” That would be facts, commentary, information, details and such that disagreed with their political agenda.
Biden’s administration actually created the “Disinformation Governance Board” within the Department of Homeland Security that was to be assigned duties of identifying so-called “misinformation” and offering advisories about its censorship, but public outcry forced the dissolution of the scheme.
It actually was labeled quickly the “ministry of truth,” after George Orwell’s component of his book, “1984.”
At the time, Republicans cited the chief, Nina Jankowicz, and her long history of social media commentary supporting Democrats and praising efforts to silence differing opinions about COVID-19, which she described as misinformation.
Her critics also bluntly charged her with being hostile to conservative views.
She also served as a “disinformation fellow” at the Woodrow Wilson Center.
“The complaint alleges firms like NewsGuard and the Global Disinformation Index used this misinformation designation as a means to promote the demonetization of disfavored political viewpoints. In a competitive market, ad agencies compete for advertisers’ business by offering brand-safety tools that provide the best quality at the lowest cost. The brand safety agreement displaced competition by insulating the ad agencies from these competitive conditions, according to the complaint.”
The solution still needs the approval of a federal judge, but when that is delivered, “the order will ensure that each of the biggest U.S. advertising agencies are prevented from engaging in agreements that would set common brand safety standards or restrict advertising based on biased and politically motivated criteria.”
The legal fight was in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas and also involved officials from Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Montana, Nebraska, Texas, Utah and West Virginia.
According to the Federalist, which confirmed it was among those targeted for harm, said the plan was that various organizations would claim certain opinions were “disinformation” and those reporting on those opinions would be demonetized.
NewsGuard, WorldNetDaily and the pitched battle for a free press
