Big Brands and the Silent War Against Dissent – Corporate-Driven Censorship Continues

Freedom collides with the costs of “security”

Meta Platforms’ recent pivot toward content moderation has reignited the debate about advertisers’ outsized influence in shaping the digital landscape. While CEO Mark Zuckerberg has recently pushed for the loosening of speech restrictions by accusing legacy media of censorship and accusing fact-checkers of undermining public trust, the reality is that advertisers remain the most powerful force dictating what users see — or don’t see — on major platforms like Facebook and Instagram.

But let us not get carried away.

In a conference call with advertisers on Jan. 17, Meta executives assured brands that they remain committed to “brand safety” and offered tools to ensure ads don’t appear near content deemed inappropriate. Samantha Stetson, Meta’s advertising lead, clarified, “We are 100% committed to brand safety.” But that statement stands in stark contrast to Zuckerberg’s rhetoric about empowering users and rolling back the restrictive policies that have dominated virtual communication platforms for years.

This tension between free speech and ad-driven censorship reveals an inconvenient truth: Platforms like Meta are beholden to the billions of dollars flowing from advertisers who demand a clean environment for their brands. The result is a chilling effect on expression as the platforms preemptively suppress content to avoid angering corporate sponsors. Although Zuckerberg talks about promoting open dialogue, Meta’s reliance on advertising revenue ultimately promotes a form of censorship that is far more pervasive than government intervention.

Advertisers as gatekeepers

For years, the relationship between platforms and advertisers has followed a predictable script: brands demand stricter moderation of what they consider “objectionable content,” and platforms comply in order to keep the ad revenue flowing. This dynamic exploded during Donald Trump’s first presidency, as platforms scrambled to distance themselves from political controversies.

The pressure came to a head in 2017, when ads from well-known brands appeared alongside political YouTube videos.

Rather than challenging the idea that platforms should be held responsible for user-generated content, tech companies complied. They implemented sweeping measures to filter, dismantle, and remove content that advertisers deemed distasteful, regardless of whether that content violated laws or simply violated prevailing norms. This gave brands immense power to dictate the boundaries of acceptable speech online—a power they wielded with little transparency or accountability.

The move away from strict censorship on Meta is a small course correction, but advertisers are making demands. With the introduction of tools like “community notes” and a hands-off approach to controlling subjective terms like “hate speech,” brands are worried that their ads might appear next to content they don’t like. Monika Bickert, Meta’s vice president of content policy, tried to allay those concerns by explaining the new approach. For example, statements like “women shouldn’t be allowed to serve in combat” are now allowed under Meta’s rules – a modification that advertisers are reportedly unhappy about.

However, this just goes to show how much control advertisers continue to exert over what users can and cannot say.

Censorship in the name of “brand safety”

What Meta calls “brand safety” is actually corporate-driven censorship. By threatening to withdraw funding, advertisers force platforms to accommodate their preferences, thereby limiting public discourse. Even though Meta claims to prioritize open dialogue, the company’s dependence on advertising revenue means its policies are always biased toward the narrowest, most innocuous version of speech.

This practice has far-reaching social consequences. The very concept of “brand safety” is subjective and politically charged and is often used to crack down on statements that challenge prevailing narratives or reflect unpopular opinions.

The advertising departments of major companies have deemed “hate speech” and “misinformation” legitimate concerns; the overreach of advertisers has stifled nuanced conversations on topics ranging from politics to culture. Rather than fostering an environment where diverse viewpoints can flourish, platforms like Meta ultimately prioritize corporate sensitivities over the free exchange of ideas.

Boycott as a weapon

The growing influence of advertisers has turned brand safety into a political weapon. Conservative politicians and commentators have increasingly accused advertising agencies and brands of using boycotts to silence right-wing media.

These allegations gained ground last year when Elon Musk’s X filed an antitrust lawsuit against an advertising association and major brands, accusing them of illegally colluding to blacklist the platform.

Musk’s lawsuit followed a House Judiciary Committee report alleging that advertisers violated antitrust laws by withholding spending from conservative outlets.

While advertisers have every right to decide where their money goes, their actions often resemble soft censorship. By threatening boycotts, they create economic incentives for platforms to suppress controversial or dissenting views. Virtual communication networks are not like traditional media. In traditional media, advertisers can find suitable shows and films to promote their content – something that fits their brand. However, on virtual communication platforms, where everyone has (or should have) a voice, advertisers should make concessions.

This strategy of avoiding what they consider controversial not only suppresses free speech, but also deepens ideological divides as certain viewpoints are effectively erased from mainstream platforms as they no longer have a way to survive financially.

The Washington Post‘s revelation that 40% of its content is considered “unsafe” at any given time shows just how damaging this system has become. Whole sections of articles are routinely stripped of ad revenue because algorithms misinterpret certain words. A reference to “explosion” in an article about fireworks? Flagged. The term “viral” in an article about internet trends? Blacklisted. This kind of crude, context-insensitive filtering not only hurts publishers, it fundamentally undermines the variety and depth of information available to the public.

Worse, blacklists like Microsoft’s, which reportedly include thousands of words like “attack,” “Biden,” “Trump” and “racism,” are emblematic of a system that discourages advertisers from engaging in meaningful reporting on societal issues. These tools were designed to protect brands from risk, but their overuse has inadvertently turned them into a mechanism for suppressing critical conversations about politics, culture and world affairs.

The rise of brand safety as a dominant concern for advertisers can be attributed in part to the efforts of activist groups dedicated to getting brands to cut their ties with certain content—particularly conservative alternative news websites. While these groups often describe their campaigns as fighting “misinformation” or “hate speech,” their tactics frequently veer in what many see as outright censorship, using economic pressure to suppress views they disagree with.

One of the earliest and most high-profile examples came in 2016, when the Sleeping Giants movement emerged in the wake of the U.S. presidential election. The group encouraged its followers to take screenshots of ads on Breitbart and publicly shame brands on virtual communication networks, demanding that they pull their ads from the site. This campaign quickly gained traction, leading to a widespread blacklisting of Breitbart and sparking similar efforts targeting other right-wing media outlets.

The mechanics of print campaigns

The strategy behind these campaigns is simple but effective. By targeting advertisers – often by publicly shaming them on platforms like Twitter – activist groups use fear of ominous PR to force brands to act. The result is a cascade of corporate responses as companies try to avoid even the slightest connection to content that could be perceived as controversial. While this tactic is presented as a way to hold companies accountable, it has also resulted in limiting the range of permissible online editorial content. Many conservative websites have seen their advertising revenue plummet, not because of violations of platform rules, but because they have been deemed too controversial by activist groups and the brands they influence.

What makes these campaigns particularly powerful is their reliance on adtech tools like keyword blocking, which were originally designed to help brands avoid harmful or inappropriate content. Once a site or keyword is flagged by activists, it is often added to blacklists that advertisers use to avoid placing their ads near content deemed risky. Over time, this process has led to a self-reinforcing cycle in which conservative sites are blacklisted not because they violate rules, but because they have been targeted by activist campaigns.

While these efforts are often celebrated by their proponents as victories against extremism or disinformation, the broader implications are far more complicated. By driving the widespread adoption of blunt tools like keyword blocking and blanket website blocking, these campaigns have contributed to an advertising ecosystem that punishes far more than its intended targets.

Reputable conservative websites that adhere to journalistic ethics are often drawn into these efforts. Alternative news websites which cover a mix of political and cultural issues, have significant trouble generating advertising revenue because they are on activist-created blacklists. This has forced many websites to rely on revenue streams like subscriptions, which can limit their reach and accessibility.

The advertising cartels that exacerbate the problem

The Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), an industry consortium formed in 2019 under the auspices of the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), has positioned itself as a leader in shaping how brands deal with digital content. Comprised of some of the world’s largest advertisers – including Coca-Cola, Unilever and Procter & Camp; Gamble – as well as major platforms such as Meta, Google and TikTok, GARM claims to be working towards creating a “responsible” digital media ecosystem. However, GARM acts less as a force for accountability and much more as an “advertising cartel” that uses its collective power to enforce sweeping standards that suppress free expression, particularly when it comes to news and opinion-based content.

GARM’s policies are enforced through ad tech tools that widely apply keyword blocking, content filtering, and blacklisting. These tools, which align with GARM’s priorities, disproportionately impact news publishers by dismantling articles that report on real events, regardless of context. For example, a publisher reporting on humanitarian crises or global conflicts may find its articles flagged for containing terms like “violence” or “war,” even when those articles are critical to public perception.

This approach not only hurts publishers financially, but also affects the type of content that platforms promote. Virtual communication platforms’ algorithms, influenced by advertisers’ preferences for “brand-safe” environments, often de-emphasize news content to avoid ad delivery risks. As a result, lighter, entertainment-focused material is highlighted while serious reporting is sidelined.

Essentially, the GARM standards have created an ecosystem in which important, sometimes inconvenient stories are penalized while shallow articles thrive.

Critics have also pointed out that the GARM guidelines disproportionately disadvantage certain types of content and media, particularly conservative media. Such media outlets, which dare to offer an alternative point of view to the mainstream media narrative, have long been the focus of ad boycott and blacklisting efforts, often driven by activists who argue that these sites spread “harmful” or “divisive” content. The GARM guidelines enable and legitimize these campaigns by institutionalizing a set of brand safety standards that are inherently subjective and often ideologically skewed.

That’s not to say that left-wing or mainstream news is completely spared—news content of all kinds suffers from the overly broad application of the GARM standards. However, the criteria used by the alliance tend to reflect the cultural and political preferences of the companies involved, which generally espouse more progressive or centrist values. This has given rise to accusations that the GARM, whether intentionally or not, contributes to a form of ideological censorship that excludes dissenting voices.

One of the most troubling aspects of the GARM was its sheer concentration of power. By bringing together major advertisers and market-dominating technology platforms under one roof, the GARM acts as a quasi-regulatory body, able to dictate terms for the entire digital media ecosystem. This concentration gives the alliance outsized influence over publishers, who must either adhere to the alliance’s brand safety standards or risk losing access to vital advertising revenue.

Unlike traditional regulators, GARM has operated with minimal transparency and no accountability to the public. Its decisions are driven by the interests of multinational corporations rather than democratic processes, raising concerns about the lack of checks on its influence. The result is a system in which a handful of powerful actors can set the rules for online speech, effectively bypassing traditional free expression protections.

The Battle for Language Before Profit

Zuckerberg’s rhetoric about loosening content restrictions is a step in the right direction, but until platforms break free from their dependence on advertisers, true freedom of expression on the Internet will remain an illusion.

The impact of this shift goes beyond publishers’ financial difficulties – it’s fundamentally modifying the type of content that thrives online. As brands increasingly shun political and controversial content, publishers are under enormous pressure to tone down their coverage or avoid certain topics altogether. For many, the incentive is clear: either produce safe, brand-friendly content or risk being shut out of advertising spend altogether.

This dynamic perpetuates a cycle of corporate-driven censorship in which the pursuit of advertising revenue suppresses meaningful journalism and limits the diversity of perspectives available to the public.

 

yogaesoteric
February 11, 2025