Companies have struggled over the past few years to reach potential customers while making sure their online ads do not appear near the dubious, blissful, or potentially harmful content. AARP, cited in the NewsGuard report as one of the companies that placed ads on websites, said that despite strict monitoring procedures, some ads slipped through the cracks.
“We follow strict ad placement protocols, but no system is 100 percent foolish,” Martha Boudreau, executive vice president of the GAAP, said in a statement.
An internal GAAP review found that a small portion of its ads, less than 1 / 100th of 1 percent, appeared on the sites tagged by NewsGuard, Ms. Boudreau added.
Matt Skibinski, CEO of NewsGuard, said that businesses should treat websites that publish incorrect information in the same way that they treat websites that promote behavior that is not in line with their corporate values, or that publish content that they do not want to associate with. .
“At many brands, there is someone whose job it is to make sure that they do not place ads in what they would call unsafe or unsuitable environments, and that includes violence, pornography and gambling,” he said. Skibinski said. “We need the industry to start seeing misinformation in that category – to inflict real damage.”
NewsGuard reported that Procter & Gamble ads appeared on The Gateway Pundit, one of the sites he asked to publish false information. Procter & Gamble said in an email that they did not intentionally advertise on the site. Erica Noble, a spokeswoman for Procter & Gamble, said that when the company’s ads are placed on a site that does not meet its standards, it acts quickly to remove them.
“These are all standards that were good before the horrific events on January 6, but we appreciate that it is now gaining a new interest,” she said.