More than 400 brands have been found out recently funding fake news and conspiracy sites without their knowledge, a fake news tracking company reveals. According to its recent report, the advertisers are "unaware that their ads were on dubious sites".
A recent data released by Storyzy reveals a shocking truth in the online advertising community, reporting that as of July 2017, more than 400 ads have plastered around fake news and conspiracy sites. Storyzy is a fully automated content software dealing with fake news through authentic quotations.
In a statement to IBTimes Singapore, Storyzy's co-founder and chief executive Stan Motte says fake news sites are also associated with ad platforms to monetize their content. Reaching out to people behind the impacted brands, Motte found out that many advertisers are not aware of the trade.
"They were unaware of the fact that their ads were on these dubious sites", states Motte. "A majority of them would have probably removed their ads in advance if they had known where they would appear".
Motte notes the shortcoming hugely lies on the "programmatic advertising", which involves computerised systems to sell online ad space to advertisers and their agencies. In a word, marketers and advertisers have no idea which sites their ads will be mounted on.
Advertisers, on the other hand, have their fair share of failure in this instance. Motte says, "The marketer or the advertiser might not pay specific attention at all to the eventual ad placement, due to his performance preference over ethical values".
Although, there are companies that are strict with their brand image so their ads cannot be seen just anywhere on the internet.
Motte cited two underlying methods to avoid the issue. First is to whitelist legitimate sites where brands and advertising agencies agree to show the ads. Second is to blacklist fake news and conspiracy sites where their ads will not be displayed.
