Howard Dean rallies the Internet with plan to destroy Breitbart and its already working

[applegrove]

Last edited Tue Jan 10, 2017, 01:08 AM - Edit history (1)

Howard Dean rallies the Internet with plan to ‘destroy’ Breitbart — and it’s already working

by David Edwards at the Raw Story

http://www.rawstory.com/2017/01/howard-dean-rallies-the-internet-with-plan-to-destroy-breitbart-and-its-already-working/

"SNIP............


Former Vermont Governor Howard Dean (D) on Sunday called on progressives to help cripple Breitbart News’ business model with an aggressive and shrewd campaign of boycotting advertisers.

In a tweet on Sunday, Dean encouraged his followers to share a plan highlighted in a recent New York Times article titled “How to Destroy the Business Model of Breitbart and Fake News.”

Follow
Howard Dean ✔ @GovHowardDean
Thanks to NYT article I am going to look at Breitbart next week and refuse to buy any product I see advertised there. Please RT.
7:55 PM - 8 Jan 2017
2,383 2,383 Retweets 2,509 2,509 likes

According to the Times, a group called Sleeping Giants have been successful at forcing advertisers to blacklist Breitbart by taking screen shots of advertisements that appear next to hate speech on the conservative website. The group then uses the screen shots to shame the advertisers on social media.


.............SNIP"

[radical noodle]

1. I'm willing to do anything to take down those liars

[romana]

2. Anything to make life difficult

But I don't think most of the site's revenue comes from advertising. I'm sure there's a ton of dark money bankrolling it. The ads are just for show.

By all means we should target their advertisers, but that won't put them out if business.

[Dustlawyer]

28. Yes, but it makes the site less believable to casual readers.

I will give you a real life example:

Several years ago the U.S. Chamber of Commerce decided to create courthouse newspapers to influence juries sitting to decide cases, especially civil lawsuits against corporations and doctors. Their original plan was to place newspapers in what they had identified as "Judicial Hellholes." The first one was in West Virginia, the next one was in my area and is called the Southeast Texas Record Southeasttexasrecord.com. The have some others, another one I know of is the Louisiana record out of NOLA. They all have "Record" in the name and none identify the Chamber as the owner.

When it first came out they were free right outside the jury assembly room to the courthouse. They even handed their first edition to jury panels sitting outside the courtroom they were about to go in to see if they would be picked for the jury. I know because we were about to start a mesothelioma (fatal cancer caused by asbestos exposure) trial. Across the hall a medical malpractice case was about to start. Coincidentally, (not) the two front page stories were about Trial lawyers filing fraudulent asbestos cases and doctors leaving he state due to the trial lawyers filing so many frivolous medical malpractice cases in the state.

These first issues contained no ads and were treated like the corporate rag they were, no one was taking them. Then they started running advertising and made the layout resemble a legitimate paper and they got a much better response. They have gone online now and had to remove them from our courthouse. I see them for sale now in the convenience store by my house. While the stories got more objective, the editorials are as bad or worse than you would expect.

I hope this works, but the RW media National Enquirer formula has so many hooked already the regulars will still come. Hopefully as they die out they will not be replaced.

[orangecrush]

3. I like it

I surely won't buy any product that gives those scum revenue.

[Wellstone ruled]

4. Better late than never.

Some post a list of these Advertisers.

[renate]

5. Here ya go!

http://adstrike.us/

Scroll down and you can find a list of those who are still advertising as well as those who have stopped.

[LAS14]

6. Thanks! Great website! I'm sharing and e-mailing wherever I can!

[renate]

8. yay! they make it so easy to take action--I wish I knew more people to tell about it!

I'm glad you're spreading the word! I'm posting about it here wherever I can.

[LAS14]

11. Request for tech help.

I tweeted thanks to about 25 delisted companies, but after that I kept getting told "Your message could not be sent." I got out and got in again and was able to launch another dozen or so tweets but then got the same message. Is it me?

Also, there doesn't seem to be a way to avoid attempting to thank a company you've already thanked. The order of companies seems random each time. Thoughts?

[renate]

12. LOL you definitely don't want to ask me for tech help!

Anybody else?

[LAS14]

14. The problem went away. Check out my new post.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10028451376

[pkdu]

27. Too many posts in short timeframe raises a SPAM flag - its quite common.

Just spread them out a little

[LAS14]

35. Thanks!

[burrowowl]

32. K&R

[Takket]

7. i was wondering what to do to stop fake news and this is a great start!

Great idea!!!!!!!!!

[Stonepounder]

9. I saw Earthlink on the list of advertisers.

I've been an Earthlink subscriber for over 20 years, since before the web, when it was just the plain old internet and we shared info using Wildcat Bulletin Boards. I sent them an email letting them know that their advertising showed up on Breitbart and told them that I didn't think that they would want to be associated with a fake news, white supremacist site.

I'm waiting to see if I hear back.

[kimbutgar]

21. EarthLink was my first internet provider in 1996

I thought they went out business. My internet connection was constantly out, could never get support. My husband and son were going crazy about the Internet dropping and was out all more than on Had to switch to ATT begrudgingly. I really tried to stay with a small company isp.

[hexola]

10. I suspect a lot of businesses might not know their ads are appearing there...

I think the way this kind of advertising is sold - you may not exactly know where your ads might show up.

[LAS14]

16. But they are able to specify sites where they don't want...

...to appear. It's called de-listing. Check out this site which makes it easy to encourage companies to de-list and to publicly thank those that have.

http://adstrike.us/

[TygrBright]

19. But they CAN opt out, when they know. n/t

[Augiedog]

13. Works for me

[Lucinda]

15. KNR

[TomCADem]

17. Wish Howard Was In Running to Be DNC Chair

He helped lead Democrats to capture House and Senate.

[Alice11111]

26. Howard Dean, Run, we need you!

I've tried contacting him b4. No real luck! He wanted to be head of the DNC now! He dropped out because of pressure from Sen Schumer and others. If he wasn't wanted, he didn't want it. He is wanted by most of us though. He is much more effective! than the other candidates, plus experienced! I sat by him once at a fundraiser dinner. Those trips and fundraisers were unsung, but he worked very hard. He was the best DNC chair ever. The 50 state approach is what we need. Had he been chair, the Great Lake states would not have been ignored...lest the Dems stir things up with Trump (that was their reasoning?#?!, DNC and Hillary Camp). Hillary would be president!

Does anyone know how to start a petition?
Let's go for tested and proven! We can try new people when the stakes aren't so high.

[DFW]

41. I know how to contact him

I've known Howard for about 15 years, from before he ever ran for president. But I can't very well go posting his cell phone or email on a blog. That would be the end of both his privacy and our friendship, and there aren't a whole lot of people I can both jam on Leo Kottke guitar tunes AND discuss national politics with.

If it helps, he has taken the stance that he is not going to get into a fight with other like-minded Democrats for the DNC chairmanship. if asked by the DNC, he will do it. But he had to fight tooth and nail for the post in 2004, and he's just not interested in going through that again. No one thinks he has to prove he knows how to do the job. The only question is whether Democrats want experience or want to try someone new. Howard is perfectly willing to let the party make that decision without pressure from him, and is cool with abiding by that decision.

[Alice11111]

43. Well, maybe u could point him to this thread.

We could start a petition. What can I do? I'm an attorney. Dem forever. Politically savvy. I would work hard for him.
I understand his position though.

[DFW]

45. Howard isn't going to do what we want him to because WE want it

He always follows his own instincts--especially if Judy is cool with them, and she is pretty tired of him coming up with projects that keep him away from Burlington five or six days a week. Plus they have grown children spread out all over the place, and Howard is a very private family man. I'll bet you have heard just about nothing about his family right? Well, Howard spends a LOT of time in contact with then when he's away. For a while, we used to attend a New Year's gathering together, but he always took off the morning of the 31st to home with Judy for the evening of the 31st. It was THAT important to him. He knows there are plenty of people out there/here who would love to have his back while he re-assumes the DNC chair (and he knows I'm one of them, because I told him so!), but he is not going to read some page on DU and let that turn his thinking around.

[Alice11111]

46. I respect that devotion to his wife.

...

[niyad]

58. Thank you for pointing these things out, DFW. Regardless of what WE want, Howard has the

right to do what HE wants, and believes to be in his, and the country's, best interests.

[Beartooth Bronsky]

63. Howard Dean NO!

People forget that Dean's "50 state strategy" resulted in running a number of Blue Dog Democrats in red states. In order to have a chance of winning, they had to be anti-abortion, anti-gun-regulation, anti-gay-marriage, strong on GOP-style "family values - basically Republican-Lite. Even when the Democrats had 60 seats, enough of the Blue Dogs voted with the GOP to allow them to filibuster Democratic bills and appointments for the last decade. We need to replace the remaining DINOs with a new generation of true progressives and Dean is too tied to the current neoliberal elite that caused too many progressive voters - especially among the young - to turn their backs on Clinton.

[Alice11111]

66. Well, they just had their chance, and they

ran a mediocre camp at best. Ignoring Great Lake States.
Not fighting back against Comey. On and on.
We are in too dangerous a place for newbies. Get someone with a track record.

[JI7]

56. maybe this is one of the reasons he dropped out

he thought he could be effective in other ways.

times are different and the media is a huge problem. and they are even worse when it comes to covering trump.

[jg10003]

18. For more info got to "Sleeping Giants"

https://www.facebook.com/slpnggiants

https://twitter.com/slpng_giants?lang=en

[Initech]

20. How do we destroy Alex Jones? He's self funded.

[coco22]

24. Yes!

[Beartooth Bronsky]

64. Alex Jones & InfoWars.com

Anybody so detached from reality as to believe Jones' assertions that the moon landings were faked, the Newtown school shootings were faked using 7 year old actors and fake blood, and the country and the entire world are ruled by shape-shifting alien reptiles is so beyond the reach of reason and sanity that there will probably be nothing the Reality-based community is going to be able to do (except round up all InfoWars subscribers and confine them to a well-padded acorn academy on a diet of anti-psychotic meds and an endless diet of Mr. Ed and PeeWee Herman reruns.

[femmedem]

22. I forced myself to go to Breitbart last week so I could tweet to a company advertising there.

It's true that the companies aren't aware that they are there, but if you take a screen shot of the ad on Breitbart and say something like, "Did you know your product ads are on hate site Breitbart? Perhaps join >400 companies blocking them?" and then tag Sleeping Giant, dozens of people retweet. It's very effective!

[Duppers]

29. +100

[SunSeeker]

23. K & R

[Hekate]

25. KnR. Breitbart's already starting a campaign in Germany. Talk about returning to the Fatherland....

...whether they want his ilk or not.

I'll visit the links. Thanks.

[DFW]

42. We do NOT want his ilk

I live in Germany.

[Hekate]

53. From everything I've read in my lifetime, Germany as a country had gone to great lengths....

...to expunge the Nazis from their national soul. Not to erase their names from history like children waving rattles at Purim to blot out Haman's name, but to burn the memory of the Nazis into the consciousness of the nation so that the German people themselves would say: Never Again. There will always be those dregs lurking in the corners -- but if I understand correctly, they were outlawed and outcast for the longest time.

Somehow I always thought it hubristic that America felt itself so strong that we could allow white nationalists like Bannon the shelter of our nation in the name of the First Amendment, as though countenancing a purulent infection like that could ever be safe.

History has its cycles... and the world has come back to something very dark. This era will either be remembered for the Rise of the Strongmen in all nations, including ours, or for how we fought it back in the US and in Europe.

Once I connected it to global climate change (the desertification of farmland leading to migrations to cities in the home country leading to unrest and crackdowns leading to the refugee crisis hitting Europe) I couldn't get that aspect of it out of my mind.

Strongmen use fear of the Other as a potent weapon. I have no idea how this will end.

Sorry to be such a downer tonight. There, that's better.

[JHan]

30. It's hilarious how they're whining about this...

It's "free market" principles at work.

[applegrove]

50. And the assumption behind economic models is that 'given perfect information,

people will behave like..........' . Howard Dean just wants the people to have perfect information.

[DonCoquixote]

31. reason number 500

why dean should have been DNC head

[Alice11111]

49. Please Howard, your country needs you!

[Gothmog]

33. A boycott of Breitbart's advertiser is a great idea

[flyingfysh]

34. Amazon is advertising on Breitbart

I looked at Breitbart, and the only real ads were from Amazon. I thought that Bezos had stopped Amazon from appearing on Breitbart.

[Alice11111]

47. Bezos, a sellout.

Follow the money. I just placed a big order last night on Amazon. Guess it's back to Ebay

[Rex]

36. They will just move into the WH.

Or Trump Tower, evil always flees the light.

[Thekaspervote]

37. Brietbart has already lost over 400 -advertisers thanks to sleeping giants

Thanks Howard dean!! This will bring even more attention to sleeping giants. It's really easy to do. Gives lots of ideas on what to say, and nicely to the advertisers. Sleeping giants is already credited with ending further advancement of their toxic trash onto the British airwaves.

Go Howard.. go everyone!! WE ARE THE SLEEPING GIANTS

[Tactical Peek]

38. Hat tip to Spocko, who blazed the trail in 2007.

Bloggers Take on Talk Radio Hosts

By NOAM COHENJAN. 15, 2007

A San Francisco talk radio station pre-empted three hours of programming on Friday in response to a campaign by bloggers who have recorded extreme comments by several hosts and passed on digital copies to advertisers.

The lead blogger, who uses the name Spocko, said that he and other bloggers had contacted more than 30 advertisers on KSFO-AM to inform them of comments made on the air and to ask them to pull their ads.

The comments were also posted on Spocko’s Web site, spockosbrain.com. In response, ABC Radio Networks, which owns KSFO and which in turn is owned by the Walt Disney Company, sent letters to the site’s service provider, demanding the clips be taken down from its servers. The provider complied, raising the issue of what constitutes fair use of copyrighted material by a critic.

. . . Spocko had recorded and disseminated other clips from the station in an effort to alarm advertisers. In one, Brian Sussman, an evening host on KSFO, described Senator Barack Obama, Democrat of Illinois, as a “halfrican,” because he has one African parent and one white parent. In another, from 2005, he challenged a caller who said he was not a Muslim to prove it by repeating back an insult to Allah. Mr. Sussman apologized for both comments during Friday’s three-hour show.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/15/technology/15radio.html

http://www.spockosbrain.com/about/

[KittyWampus]

39. Why can't we do this with FOX News?

[LaydeeBug]

40. we can

[Thekaspervote]

44. And Alex jones infowars

Here's a link to the radio stations that support him

[niyad]

60. wow, that list was a surprise. NONE of the stations here in reichwingfundieville are on that list.

[yortsed snacilbuper]

48. K$R

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

51. K&R, and thanks!

The tweet to retweet: https://twitter.com/slpng_giants/status/809563352204591105?lang=en

[oasis]

52. Shut 'em down.

[uponit7771]

54. Wouldn't that also be hostile work environment for people Brietbart are denigrating? I wouldn't want

... to be anywhere near this issue

[lindysalsagal]

55. This is awesome. I'll have to find them.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

61. Careful, it seems you are confusing WSJ for NYT. Got link?

Do you believe Democrats and progressives and liberals should set the standard and be more accurate and careful about facts than Republicans and conservatives?

Got a link to support your inflammatory accusation?

The editor of WSJ has refused to call tRump lies a lie.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-lies-and-honest-journalism-1483557700
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/dan-rather-scolds-wsj-for-refusing-to-call-a-trump-lie-a-lie_us_586b4023e4b0d9a5945c4592

Got a link saying the same about NYT?

[herding cats]

62. Are you sure about that?

I recall them calling him exactly that and even found several links where they say such.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/20/public-editor/trump-birther-lie-liz-spayd-public-editor.html?_r=0

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/28/opinion/donald-trumps-lies-about-the-popular-vote.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/10/opinion/truth-and-lies-in-the-age-of-trump.html

[lark]

59. Hey, this is an effective tactic.

It worked great against Limpballs, it will work against the Nazi Breitbart as well.

[Madam45for2923]

65. How to destroy the business model of Breitbart and fake news site

Even when ad placements are automated, companies still have the power to control whether neo-Nazis or fake news hucksters profit. In fact, it’s actually rather simple for companies to impose ethical policies, according to Mr. Zeitz. Indeed, his own company (which handles programmatic advertising for other organizations) recently decided to get out ahead of the issue by removing Breitbart News from its advertising marketplace. “We’re not banning them because they’re alt-right or conservative. We banned them from our marketplace because they violate our hate speech policy, which prohibits ad serving on sites that incite violence and discrimination against minority groups.” (Breitbart has said that it condemns racism and bigotry “in any form.”)

He pointed out that brand-name companies had already figured out how to keep their ads from flowing onto porn sites, because “you really don’t want your ad for a breakfast cereal next to a hard-core pornographic video,” and so “there are tools in place that allow companies to control where their ads go.” A company can block a specific site like Breitbart News from its ad buy. Or it might pick a “white list” of sites that align with its values.


https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/07/opinion/sunday/how-to-destroy-the-business-model-of-breitbart-and-fake-news.html?_r=0