
BuzzFeed Says Posts Were Deleted Because of Advertising Pressure - tomkwok
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/20/business/media/buzzfeed-says-posts-were-deleted-because-of-advertising-pressure.html?partner=socialflow&smid=tw-nytimes&_r=0
======
dewitt
I read this expecting something super shady, but to be totally fair to
BuzzFeed, the incidents cited (all three of them) were surprisingly benign.

According to the NYT, one of the articles was taken down because it accused
Axe (the body spray people), who happened to also be an advertiser, of
"advocating worldwide mass rape", which the editor-in-chief decided was beyond
even BuzzFeed's questionable writing standards.

Another article, about Internet Explorer, was written by a editor who had
recently worked on an ad campaign for Microsoft while on another job. BuzzFeed
took the IE article down (again, according to the NYC) to avoid the appearance
of conflict, and instituted a policy against such rotating-door behavior going
forward.

And finally the last case involved removing an editorial piece that criticized
a Pepsi advertisement created by BuzzFeed itself.

If those were really the only three cases of content being changed because of
the relationship with advertising, I'm not sure even I think there's a major
issue here. At least at this time. While reputable papers like the NYT or WSJ
of course have firm policies in place to avoid even the _perception_ of
conflict of interest, I don't think anyone is putting BuzzFeed anywhere near
their level yet.

To be honest, when I heard the rumors last week that "BuzzFeed was
manipulating content due to pressure from advertisers", I admit I just assumed
the worst of them, too.

But this might be a case of me (and probably a lot of people) expecting poor
behavior from a company simply because we're not fans of their product.

Maybe that's actually the biggest lesson from this? (Or maaaybe... the NYT is
in on it too, and this is _all_ part of an elaborate cover up by Big
Advertising.)

~~~
notahacker
Yeah, this seems like a non-story compared with, for example, advertiser
interference allegations at the Daily Telegraph, a 160-year old British
broadsheet with a reputation for investigative journalism.

The Telegraph saw its politics editor resign after claiming that the newspaper
had suppressed stories other reporting investigations into money laundering
against HSBC, a major advertiser, run the Chinese government's version of the
repression of Hong Kong protests to similarly protect its relationship with
HSBC and carried paid Russian and Chinese government propaganda supplements
(although the newspaper proper did take an anti-Russian editorial stance).
When the Guardian gleefully reported the troubles at their right wing rival,
the Telegraph responded with an anonymous front page story insinuating the
Guardian's advertising sales management were responsible for suicides on their
team.

A content mill deleting some questionable opinion pieces that wouldn't have
passed editorial review at other media companies doesn't seem to fall into the
same level of scandal...

~~~
jrochkind1
Are you saying it's a non-story because you _expect_ Buzzfeed to lack
journalistic ethics?

~~~
notahacker
I'm saying both that I wouldn't expect Buzzfeed to have much in the way of
journalistic ethics, and that brief opinion pieces on ad campaigns and board
games are not journalism. It's not censorship when respectable publications
won't publish a few hundred words and animated GIFs on "Why Monopoly Is The
Worst Game In The World, And What You Should Play Instead" in the first place,
so I'm not seeing it as particularly terrible if a more permissive editor
takes it down after a complaint on the basis there's really no upside to
keeping it.

I think it's a pretty open secret that the comparable brief lightweight pieces
and listicles on fashion, travel etc. that appear in the supplement sections
of even respectable publications are heavily influenced by who the fashion
columnist had lunch with and what freebies they've been given, and nobody
really cares.

We start worrying about chilling effects on free speech when they cheerfully
ignore major scandals involving high street banks because that high street
bank is attaching strings to their money.

~~~
panglott
So Buzzfeed's ethics are fine as long as they cheerfully ignore major scandals
involving high street banks altogether? ;)

------
vonklaus
Well, if people would fucking pay for content, these conflicts wouldn't
happen. However, people have largely decided not to pay for content. I
personally don't pay for content very often, I also don't expect unbiased
journalism from buzzfeed.

~~~
wtallis
People _aren 't_ paying for content. But extrapolating that to say that
they're _unwilling_ to pay for content is a bit of a stretch, given the
unwillingness of content producers to offer ad-free access at a fair market
price, and the lack of an easy payments system to process such small
transactions.

~~~
manigandham
I work in the online advertising space. Unwilling is probably an
understatement.

Although "people" shell out tons of money on casual/social Facebook games and
such, they are incredibly price sensitive to content like news or videos. They
also use AdBlock to basically steal content without letting publishers recoup
the production costs and other investments.

I've spoken to and worked with several major publisher networks over the years
that have tried various solutions with subscriptions but every attempt has led
to a massive backlash or drop in traffic as users would rather go elsewhere
then pay to read. Just look at how much negative feelings there are towards
paywalls or any site that requires membership.

There have been trials already by Google to solve for this but the original
idea with Google Wallet [1] failed and they're now trying out the Contributor
program [2] but still having trouble.

[1] [http://www.digitaltrends.com/web/google-launches-
micropaymen...](http://www.digitaltrends.com/web/google-launches-
micropayments-for-web-content/)

[2]
[https://www.google.com/contributor/welcome/](https://www.google.com/contributor/welcome/)

~~~
kyllo
_I work in the online advertising space._

 _They also use AdBlock to basically steal content_

The whole problem with your industry is that you are still operating under the
mistaken belief that "impressions" drive purchasing behavior. As if having
some image forcibly burnt into my brain will influence my subconscious desires
enough to cause me to make a purchase sometime later. This idea is and has
always been pure snake oil. I don't want to see your ads, and I'm not going to
click on them or buy what they are selling anyway. If anything I'm _less_
likely to buy a product after I see it in a banner ad because they are
annoying and I don't buy products that annoy me. You have no business telling
me that it's "stealing" when I configure my browser client not to show me ads
that I don't want to see. The implication is offensive. Do you think that
running a spam e-mail filter is "basically stealing" too?

~~~
manigandham
You're conflating a lot of issues.

1) Spam is not the same, you didnt ask for it so you are rightly refusing and
actively blocking it.

2) Content is not free. Someone had to create it, and they can either charge
you directly or let you see it for free by also showing you ads. When you
block those ads but still read the content, you're stealing the
access/time/production/value of that content without letting the publisher
recoup any of their investment or make any profit.

3) I'm not really sure where this anger comes from. Advertising is such a big
and growing industry because it works. This is not some evil conspiracy nor
are all the companies full of idiots. You will find regular people much like
yourself working at all of the advertising agencies, networks and publishers.

Impressions do work. It's not a "belief", it's a fact. Think of it like an
empty road with a billboard and a store at the next exit. You can have a blank
billboard and see how many people stop at the store. Then put up an ad and
measure again. That delta is a significant and measurable difference and with
digital advertising, it can be tracked to a very specific level to prove it
works. There are also many different types and formats of ads which work in
different stages of the sales conversion funnel. YOU might not think it works,
but that's not what the massive amount of data and results show every day.

~~~
kyllo
Here's a thought experiment: Imagine someone invented "smart" sunglasses that
detected billboard ads and filtered them out so the wearer saw only a blank
billboard instead of an ad. By driving down the road while wearing them and
not seeing the billboards ads, would I therefore be "stealing" from
ClearChannel?

My anger comes from the fact that businesses are constantly trying to sell me
things by harassing me. I have no problem with paying for things that I
actually want, and I gladly pay for content if it will make the ads go away,
but it normally doesn't. If you buy a subscription to a news site you _still_
see ads. I pay plenty for content when I buy books, though. If people are not
willing to pay for the content on a site like BuzzFeed, it just shows how
little that content is worth.

And advertising is really not a growing industry, at least not as a share of
GDP. It's basically a zero-sum game. Online advertising spending is only
growing to the extent that it is replacing spending on radio, TV and billboard
advertising. Source:
[http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2014-03-03/advertisings...](http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2014-03-03/advertisings-
century-of-flat-line-growth)

~~~
manigandham
You're talking about different things.

1) Impressions do work, that's what my example was about. 2) Ads are the trade
for free access to content. If the ads paid for the road you're driving on,
then yes you'd be "stealing" access to the road by ignoring the ads.

The businesses aren't harassing you, they're just spending on ads and those
ads show up on publishers who have opted to use the advertising model instead
of subscriptions/paid access. There are lots of issues with paid access like
not enough demand, price sensitivity, hard to gain new traffic/shares, etc.
Advertising is just more reliable and easier to implement and allows for
quicker growth.

If sites are using subscriptions and still show you ads (and you're actually
logged in as a paying member) then they're trying to extract more money or the
price is not covering all of their costs or something in between. That's an
issue with the publisher, not the ad companies.

Everything is zero-sum when measured to GDP because there's only 100% of the
GDP to go around. GDP is a VERY big number and it's growing, and thus the
absolute dollar amount of advertising is also growing and outpacing supply of
inventory. That being said, advertising won't become a larger part of GDP
because there are only so many buyers that also have to grow as businesses
first to increase their total budgets. It makes sense that it tracks in line
with the economy and it's not really feasible to make big changes because
businesses are not going to stop spending on something like manufacturing
their product to instead divert it to advertising.

~~~
scrollaway
> If the ads paid for the road you're driving on, then yes you'd be "stealing"
> access to the road by ignoring the ads.

Something which boggles the mind is how a lot of people who work in
advertising still don't understand the concept that you _do not have an innate
right to your users ' brains_.

Putting it down to the technical level: When you send me bits, I have complete
right and control to refuse them on a selective basis. I have a right to write
a program that will refuse them on a selective basis. I have a right to share
that program with other people, and those other peope have a right to run said
program.

Adblock is not stealing, no matter how much you want it to be. If ads are
paying for the content, the business that uses them should be made aware of
the risks of adblock and the portion of people who are not willing to accept
ads (and at which level they won't accept them).

Advertising in its current form is broken by design. It's a wonder it works at
all. And yeah maybe we would be better off without it. The businesses that
depend on the kind of ads adblock blocks tend to be shitty, low-hanging
fruits, "appeal to the masses" sort of sites. Yes exactly, Buzzfeed. That's a
debate for another day, but the point still remains: broken by design. Don't
blame the users who just fucking want to be left alone.

~~~
manigandham
...what? Maybe try starting at the top of this thread and going through it
again?

Nobody's claiming a right to anyone's brain. It's the fact that you're
accessing content that was only offered with the advertisements.

Boiling things down to the technical level just avoids the actual discussion.
Sure bittorrent is just a protocol and software, but downloading movies
illegally is still piracy right? You can build whatever software you want, but
if it's used to DDoS someone then there's a problem. It's not about the tool,
it's what its used for.

By blocking ads, you are breaking the terms of use of all the sites that
provide you content for free in exchange for ads. If you want to be left
alone, then just dont go to these sites... Advertising isn't broken, it's the
morality of users who want anything and everything for free.

~~~
scrollaway
> By blocking ads, you are breaking the terms of use of all the sites that
> provide you content for free in exchange for ads.

No... you're not. You're just not. When I visit a website, I don't agree to
any terms of use. I don't sign anything. And if there's some out there that
make me tick some bullshit box, it's nothing legal.

You have a superbly warped view of the world and I really can only encourage
you to get out of your advertising bubble and try to look at websites with a
less-informed eye, a process which is not easy to do I'm well aware.

Users don't want "anything and everything for free". They just _don 't want
you_. I'm happy to pay sites, apps I use on a daily basis but I'm not happy to
let them serve me ads. Especially when those ads suck - and they do suck. This
is content I am not willing to subject my retinas to, and by extension my
computer because it only serves to slow it down, and sometimes be an
infectious carrier.

You're claiming a right to people's brains. You're claiming people who don't
observe that right are breaking "terms of use" (they're not).

"Just don't go to these sites" doesn't work. The internet is not a place where
I research the publisher of the content I am about to consume before I even
consume it by clicking the link someone just sent me. You're not fooling
anyone, and I really hope you're not fooling yourself in thinking that.

~~~
manigandham
I'm not sure why you're refusing to see the value exchange here and instead
keep focusing on your ability to do something vs. whether it's acceptable.

Terms of use dont require a signature and online/global environment makes it
more difficult but they are real and do apply. Perhaps you've never actually
created any content but you can talk to the millions of creators out there who
would like to be paid for their work and get some more perspective.

Users do want to get stuff for free. The creators/publishers give away content
in exchange for ads. If they choose to have paid access, then that's your
option. It's up to the publishers to decide how they want to give access to
their content and service. If it's through ads, then that's the deal.

If you don't want ads, then you should only stick to publishers that offer
paid subscriptions without ads. You don't need to research the publisher, if
they have a paywall then you'll see it when you click. Otherwise they're
opting to show ads instead. Tampering with their response to only see what you
want isn't ok just because you have the technical ability to do so. It's
similar to pirating movies, just because you can doesn't mean you argue that
its legal or right.

Maybe more people are willing to pay money to read articles without ads,
that's something content publishers need to research and offer themselves but
that's a completely different topic. Adblocking right now is somewhere in the
gray area of legality and morality and while you can choose to do it, please
don't assume that means it's right or fair or that we're all idiots trying to
force it on you.

~~~
scrollaway
You're trying really hard to make this an ethical argument where there aren't
grounds for it.

I work with content creators in the gaming community on a regular basis and I
am well aware of the "content creator's perspective". Believe it or not, a lot
of content creators fully understand why someone would use adblock. They also
understand that their success isn't measured in how many ads they print, but
how much reach they have; and if you start pissing on people who block ads
(Who are going to be a huge part of your userbase), you will suffer for it.
ESPECIALLY in the gaming community, which holds grudges like you wouldn't
believe.

The only ones who believe blocking ads is in a "grey area of morality" are
advertisers. You can't just claim something is unethical because it hurts your
business. I boycott Paypal for example, and I'm sure Paypal would make the
case that it's unethical to boycott them.

Entering the business of giving free shit in exchange for the good will of
people to funnel them advertising revenue is, and should be, a calculated
risk.

There is no such thing as an "exchange of content for ad impressions". The
"exchange" between the user and the content producer is free, and the real
exchange happens between the content producer and the _advertiser_. The
interaction between the business and the user is limited to the content they
offer, and anti-value added by the advertiser (which is then an exchange
between the user and the advertiser).

As a user, I choose to make an exchange with the business (in most cases not
involving money), and I choose not to make an exchange with the advertiser
because _I don 't trust the advertiser. I don't want the advertiser anywhere
near me or my children_. Work on that image and we can talk.

~~~
manigandham
Your Paypal example isn't the same scenario - You can boycott any company, but
taking something from them without something in return, unless it was a gift,
is stealing. Stealing is unethical at the very least.

We're not discussing the risks of advertising vs subscriptions. The long-tail
of websites and niche content only exists because of advertising. There are
way too many sources of content for even the best theoretical and fair payment
solution to handle. Advertising is the primary viable business model for
internet content.

And yes, publishers still allow content to be viewed even with adblockers
because its hard to defend against, they can claim higher reach/users numbers
and they might benefit from shares. It doesn't mean they want to and I'd bet
every one of the creators you talk to understand why adblockers exist but
would rather they not apply to the content they produce. Ask them that
specifically if you haven't already. A small anecdote about the gaming
community does not apply to the entire internet when for most publishers,
their financial success is exactly tied to how many ads they serve and how
much revenue they generate.

What I feel you're missing or just actively ignoring is that just because you
can do something, does NOT make it right. Technology has made it very easy to
find, download and filter exactly what you want but this enabling has lead to
things like massive piracy.

Let me just ask you this: Do you think it's "right" to just download a movie
without compensating all the work that went into it? Because consuming written
content without paying and blocking the ads is exactly the same thing.

~~~
scrollaway
> Let me just ask you this: Do you think it's "right" to just download a movie
> without compensating all the work that went into it? Because consuming
> written content without paying and blocking the ads is exactly the same
> thing.

This is a strawman because you need to go out of your way to download a movie
without paying for it, and in most countries, that is illegal.

You're completely missing this very important difference: It's legal to block
ads and view free content. It's not legal to download things you're supposed
to pay for.

As for whether it's "right" or "ethical" to block ads, that's a decision the
industry you work for would love to get its hands on. Fact is, it's all take
and no give with for-profit businesses. You mentioned HBO Go, well how about
all those _pay-for_ services which still show ads? How about the TV channels
that still show ads? How about all the services on the web that you pay for
and still don't have the decency to disable ads? They're common, and all the
strawmen you're bringing into the discussion are carefully avoiding that
little factoid.

> taking something from them without something in return, unless it was a
> gift, is stealing

Oh I've had enough with you already. The websites _are_ gifting the content
with the understanding that a part of their revenue will come from ads. With
that understanding is also the understanding that there's also people who _don
't_ block ads. To those who do, they're eyeballs. Non-paying eyeballs, but
still eyeballs, and there's a lot of content producers out there who would
kill to have this huge segment of the population reading, viewing, listening
to their stuff.

You go on a lot about how "people always want all their content for free".
Ignoring the fact that it's a bullshit claim, with you specifically and the
advertising industry in general, it's all take and no give. If the users are
not seeing ads, they're STEALING!

Maybe they're not giving _you_ , as the advertiser, business. But they're not
stealing from the business they actually deal with. You want to claim they
steal from _you_? Fine. That's debatable but it at least has some merit. But
don't try to paint yourself as this white knight in shiny armor who would
defend those poor mom&pop sites whose monies are being plundered.

PS: You wanna know why I'm so bitter? Just two weeks ago I was right in front
of an ad network who asked one of the gaming fansites I deal with (a major
French fansite), listening to them making demands on how the site should be
redesigned to fit _their_ worthless ads and how we should start blocking
people who use adblock and telling them to turn it off. This is your fucking
game. _You_ want people to disable adblock, you don't care about _our_ users.

------
theVirginian
Its not like I ever looked at BuzzFeed as a trusted news source. Honestly I am
surprised that they aren't paid directly for every one of their articles.

~~~
peteretep
«When the conversation turns to a vivid story from Liberia, where Ebola has
overtaken a particular neighborhood in Monrovia, one editor proudly reports
that she believes the [New York] Times is the only outlet with a reporter on
the ground, which makes everyone happy until another editor says, "I think
BuzzFeed actually has somebody there." There is momentary silence.»

[http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/a14030/how-the-
ne...](http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/a14030/how-the-new-york-
times-works/)

~~~
pki
To be fair, that reads like "did you know twitter has journalists there too"
\-- it's not really a apples to apples comparison

------
lifeisstillgood
This is one area, as a Brit, that I see government as vital in the provision
of independant journalism. Which is pretty much a tautology but it can work -
cf BBC.

Have a specialised tax, ring fenced solely for journalism, and let it fund a
small number of statutory independant organisations.

It's probably my most socialist leaning.

~~~
peteretep
The govt doesn't (just) give you independent news via the Beeb - all TV news
is required to be editorially neutral. Sky News is (amazingly) a pretty good
news source

~~~
lifeisstillgood
Sorry - the U.S. Does _not_?!

~~~
peteretep
Require non-neutrality in broadcast news?

On the assumption that that's a sincere question, no, no it doesn't. Fox News
and MSNBC being particularly egregious examples of "news" that push right and
left wing views respectively.

------
aikah
So other journalists and newspapers are now holding BuzzFeed to the same high
standards as theirs ?

Do they really consider BuzzFeed "news" ?

If it is the case, then their own standards are dramatically low.

Next in the nytimes, "outrage as TMZ deletes posts" ?

That article says more about the state of "legit online news" than it says
about the state of BuzzFeed. Nytimes shouldn't even talk about BuzzFeed, it
makes them look stupid and click baity.

------
kmfrk
I think semantics are important here, especially in a technical context.

There are several way to "unpublish" an article:

\- Retract it

\- Delete it

\- Completely erase it from the web

What BuzzFeed did in at least two cases was delete the articles _and_ include
them in their robots.txt, which, at least to me, is completely bonkers.

It is one thing for a publication to retract an article, but it is an entirely
different thing to make an effort of making it seem as if they never existed
to begin with.

It's that kind of mentality that leads you to think that even BuzzFeed don't
think highly of their own articles, where you can always make it up in volume.

~~~
jamesbrownuhh
Putting the article URL in robots.txt stops the Wayback machine from
displaying it - that's why they do it, just in case the Internet Archive
happened to have a cached copy of the article.

~~~
aw3c2
And that's an attempt to re-write history or at least remove something from
it.

------
manigandham
This is nothing new and happens all the time, they were just caught so it
became a big story.

Advertiser pressure vs editorial freedom has existed since the beginning of
press when the first publisher sold ads. The content marketing/native format
of BuzzFeed makes it a little more susceptible to this but I am surprised a
publisher with revenues over 100M were so worried about a few critical posts.
Then again this is BuzzFeed which, while it's trying to move upmarket with
some really amazing news pieces, is still massively in the mainstream world of
producing viral social content lacking in substance and doesn't have the
reputation of higher end publications yet.

Combine that with the highly political and sensitive world of digital
advertising where young media buyers who control millions of ad spend and the
lack of other solid revenue opportunities for publishers and this conflict
will only increase in the coming years.

------
RickHull
So Ben Smith lied, right? I'm surprised the Times piece doesn't highlight that
fact.

> An internal review by BuzzFeed last week found three instances when editors
> deleted posts after advertisers or employees from the company’s business
> side complained about their content

> Mr. Smith later reinstated the two posts, saying he had overreacted when
> asking editors to delete them. He told staff members in a note that the
> posts had been erased after he took issue with their opinionated tone _and
> not because of complaints from advertisers_.

~~~
pbreit
No. The three posts referenced in this article were not the 2 posts Smith
referenced.

------
jrochkind1
> In the memo, Mr. Smith wrote that he had not considered that a BuzzFeed
> writer would write a post critical of advertising content being created by
> other BuzzFeed employees.

They won't need to delete such posts again, they are making it clear to their
writers that they should not write them in the first place.

------
mbrutsch
I know another website that does this...

