The Secret Ratings Agencies That Control Media Advertising: Freddie Sayers
American Thought Leaders
The Epoch Times
4.9 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 31 May 2024
⏱️ 33 minutes
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Summary
“In this complex machinery, there are these things called ratings agencies ... and they put a number on how trustworthy individual publications are,” says Freddie Sayers. “If they give you a zero or they put you on the naughty list, you don’t get any advertising. Your business model is pretty much turned off overnight.”
Mr. Sayers is the editor-in-chief of UnHerd, and he recently started looking into the systems of programmatic advertising after he discovered UnHerd had been given a zero rating for trustworthiness and placed on a “dynamic exclusion list” by the Global Disinformation Index.
In this episode, he breaks down what he’s uncovered about the workings of what he calls “the disinformation industry.”
“This is taxpayer dollars flowing into completely unaccountable, self-created organizations,” Mr. Sayers says.
Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Extraordinarily, we have now found ourselves on this blacklist. |
| 0:04.0 | There are these things called ratings agencies and they put a number on how trustworthy |
| 0:10.1 | individual publications are. And if they give you a zero or they put you on the |
| 0:14.1 | nawley list your business model is pretty much turned off overnight. |
| 0:17.3 | At the recent dissident dialogues conference in New York I sat down with Freddie Sayers |
| 0:22.1 | editor-in-chief of Unheard. |
| 0:24.6 | We were quote-unquote anti-L-G-Q-I-plus on the grounds that we publish quote-unquote gender critical feminists. |
| 0:34.0 | In this episode he breaks down what he's uncovered |
| 0:36.8 | about the workings of the disinformation industry. |
| 0:39.7 | This is taxpayer dollars flowing into completely unaccountable self-created |
| 0:46.4 | organizations. This is American Thought Leaders and I'm Yagnay Kellick. |
| 0:50.8 | Freddie Sayers, it's so good to have you on American thought leaders here at |
| 0:57.4 | Dissident Dialogues, which actually you are putting on. |
| 1:00.9 | Yes, we are sponsoring it. It's the first of its kind. We're here in |
| 1:05.2 | Brooklyn in a strange kind of industrial park overlooking Manhattan, bit of |
| 1:09.7 | water between us and it's been amazing. We're in day two now. These are groups of people who |
| 1:15.1 | are intelligent, interesting heterodox as the phrase goes. You know they come from all |
| 1:20.6 | parts of the political spectrum but we are addressing issues |
| 1:24.8 | that many people find difficult to talk about and we're doing it and I hope a |
| 1:28.8 | fun and constructive atmosphere and there's some 800 plus people here which I think is an incredibly positive sign. |
| 1:35.0 | Well an amazing thing that I want to talk about. I'm not going to start with this but you know you are a UK |
| 1:39.8 | I'll call it a dissident media, a heterodox media, |
... |
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