![]() Yet the two campaigns share a basic core strategy. Nor are Sleeping Giants’ protesters acting out a personal vendetta they’re driven by concern about the racism, misogyny, and xenophobia on display at Breitbart, a site with, for example, a “black crime” vertical that once called Muslims in the West a “ticking time bomb.” There’s no doggedly determined group time-stamping every appearance of a new ad on Breitbart. Sleeping Giants, by contrast, is more dependent on casual participation. Incensed, Gamergate trolls launched a vicious campaign against the developer and other women that included violent threats and the leaking of personal information. ![]() Gamergate was spawned out of a controversy over inaccurate claims that a writer at the Gawker Media site Kotaku had positively reviewed an indie game by a developer he was dating. In 2014, angry members of the Gamergate movement went after Gawker Media, including flagship site Gawker, costing the company a reported “seven figures” in ad revenue. ![]() But in coordinating online to attack digital advertising, Sleeping Giants is taking a page from a group that recently showed how easily a dedicated group can kneecap a website’s support. Pressuring advertisers to drop support for broadcasters or publishers is a time-honored political strategy, one notably embraced in the past by conservative groups like Christian Leaders for Responsible Television and the American Family Association and coordinated by phone or mail. Sleeping Giants’ approach here isn’t new, of course. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |