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Advertisers flee from InfoWars on YouTube

Advertisers flee from InfoWars on YouTube

The bad news is getting very real for Alex Jones and his InfoWars channel.

CNN reports that a number of brand owners have expressed dismay after the news service alerted them to the fact that ads for their products have been appearing on the controversial alt-right channel.

Affected brands include Nike, Acer, 20th Century Fox, Paramount, Expedia, Alibaba and Mozilla. Many of these companies have now had their ads removed from the channel.

Nike has also asked YouTube for an explanation as to why InfoWars was not picked up by the video platform’s supposedly improved content flagging system. The company confirmed that it has already opted into YouTube’s ‘sensitive subject exclusion’ filter. Paramount has also said it is investigating what “went wrong” with the situation.

Acer says its existing YouTube filter choices should have “prevented this”, while 20th Century Fox – which had its ads removed immediately – said much the same, adding that it has asked for a refund on its applicable ad spend. Mozilla expressed disappointment in the news and has also reached out to YouTube.

False Flag

YouTube has not commented on the problem specifically, telling CNN: "We uphold free expression according to our Community Guidelines, even when there are views we don't agree with. When videos are flagged to us that violate our guidelines, we immediately remove them. We do not allow ads to run on videos that deal with sensitive and tragic events."

In other news, Alex Jones earlier this week claimed that he had been told by YouTube that his channel was to be removed in 24 hours. That was on Saturday. Of course, the channel is still up and running. Indeed, there have been no previous cases of YouTube warning creators of an impending closure. Fake news?

As far as everyone is aware, InfoWars remains one strike away from deletion.


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