06.02.2017 10:44 AM

Rebel, farewell?

We can only hope.

A growing number of advertisers in Canada are feeling the heat for placing ads on The Rebel, a website founded by Ezra Levant as a successor of sorts to the now-defunct Sun News Network.

…Sleeping Giants, an anonymous group, created a Twitter account in November to publish screen shots of ads on Breitbart and to call out those advertisers for appearing there. In February, an affiliated account was created for Canada, and the group began focusing on The Rebel’s advertisers. The Canadian account has used social media to pressure brands such as 7-Eleven, Dynamite clothing stores, PetSmart, the Royal Canadian Mint, the NCAA, BMW Canada – for an ad placed by one of its dealers – and others.

10 Comments

  1. Charlie says:

    Speaks to a much, much bigger problem with online advertising the algorithms used by marketing providers such as Google.

    The same thing happened on YouTube, where advertisements for major brands were being shown along with the fringe-est of right wing conspiracy theorists. Of course, this became an issue of reputation protection and association for those companies but the real problem is that the same thing is happening all over the internet where mainstream brands are being shown on very un-mainstream sites.

    Money is blind; when ad spaces are sold to brands the decisions are based almost entirely upon “clicks and eyes” rather than content.

    We’ve hit a new age in PR and marketing online now that activism is growing increasingly effective at holding brands to account with what they directly/indirectly fund. For the most part, this has yielded some good results (Bill O’Reilly, Alex Jones, Sean Hannity).

  2. Miles Lunn says:

    Just wondering with advertising on facebook pages if one gets any say over this or you just put them on social media and they can show up on any page that fits the target demographic. Any company deliberating advertising with the Rebel needs to be called out, but those who do it accidentally that is a different story. If it can be avoided definitely as Rebel is not a news or opinion site, it is a hate site.

  3. the salamander says:

    .. the freeps and creeps of Exra Fluvant’s pedantic & frantic hysterical ‘brand’ .. Well, it was with great curiosity & interest I first read about ‘sleeping giant’s’ strategy & initiative.. right here.

    The crude and clueless effluviant aligned with crazy old Ezra realky need and deserve a good old fashioned stomping on.. so I was quite glad to read about it here.. and you were not exaggerating. I’ve always maintained that for every so called tough guy or gal spoiling for a fight there is someone right around the next corner who will leave them face down in the dust with a casual cuffing.

    When plodding fools like clueless Levant, Brain Lilly, Hamish Marshall,’Faith’ Goldy, Anne Southern et al start getting uppity and shapeshifting as wannabe journalists, entertainers, political geniuses, circus performers or deeply twisted mentally ill sickos.. its nice to know an elephant can simply roll over atop them and crush their wallets.

    In the old days, Marshall McLuhan or Hunter S Thompson would have laughed them out of business & no newspaper or network, no vaguely credible rag would have given them the time of day, much less 30 seconds of pulpit screetching, snorting and diarrea. But this is the era that elected their wondrous simpleton brethren, Donald the swingin shriveldick tRump president.. and has made Alex Jones, Steve Bannon millionaires just for being ignorant assorifices from every pimply pore of their worthless skins..

  4. Jack McLeod says:

    Pressure by the left has been made on advertisers to drop Breitbart. Now, advertisers are returning to Breitbart due to consumer pressure. So enjoy, that the Rebel is the next target and remember that rebel readers and supporters are also Consuners

    • Charlie says:

      True.

      But demographics are important.

      The implication in your comment that supporters of Breitbart/Rebel carry equal weight as consumers to those oppose them is empirically false. These sites cater to a slim minority of audiences who don’t possess the economic prowess to nullify the costs of brand-association that these companies would risk if they chose to appear next to objectionable content.

    • Kevin says:

      Bad left! No decent person should ever stoop to bringing pressure on an advertiser. Bad, bad left – go to your room.

      Very true that Rebel readers and supporters are consumers, and I think they should just go consume themselves into a stupor. Me, I’ll see who is advertising on those sites, think “Noted”, and go consume from someone else.

  5. Howard says:

    I remember when the Left said that the National Post wouldn’t last a year. 220 years later…

    Ezra Levant is young, brilliant, energetic, and won’t be bullied by the illiberal progressive mafia.

  6. Aongasha says:

    It’s always refreshing watching the politically correct and the Left, shutting down free speech. Perpetually PO’d Progressives as usual, would rather ban opinions other than theirs, than debate them.

  7. Kevin says:

    Enjoying myself reading all the right-wingers on this website scandalised by people on the left boycotting advertisers, and huffing and puffing about the left shutting down free speech.

    It strikes me that this is the perfect time to announce my new clothing line. I look forward to seeing Ezra leading a parade of his friends out of Walmart, their carts piled high with my Hilary Clinton Pastel Pant Suits, union-made of course. Twenty percent of the profits go to the UNHCR.

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