The Power of Advertisers in the Fight Against Hate
Advertising is one of the core ways many news outlets generate money to keep their operations running. In recent years, there have been several campaigns set up to target advertisers who choose to display their content on platforms which host hate. This month, we saw the success of one such campaign run by Sleeping Giants in France, who got Decathlon to pull their advertisements from CNEWS, a problematic TV channel known for hosting hate.
Activewear retailer Decathlon has decided to pull its advertising from TV channel CNEWS for the Christmas period, and potentially for 2021. This decision was made after a successful campaign from the French branch of Sleeping Giants. Sleeping Giants is a campaign which was originally set up in the United States in 2016 after President Donald Trump’s victory. Launched through a Twitter account, the original aim was to boycott the platform Breitbart News which was known for spreading sensationalist and hateful narratives. It has since amassed over 300,000 followers under the campaign slogan: “A campaign to make bigotry and sexism less profitable.” Besides the core campaign, there have also been local branches set up, such as the one in France which was responsible for the success with Decathlon and CNEWS.
A History of Hate on CNEWS
These are some of the cases of hate speech on CNEWS that we have covered within the GTTO project in recent years:
December 2018: During the TV show Les Voix de l’Info on the CNEWS channel, Laurence Marchand-Taillade, president of the Secular Forces movement, said that the violent rioters among the Yellow Vests who are from the suburbs have developed a strategy of destabilisation based on speculated methods used by the Muslim Brotherhood.
January 2020: Talking on his own TV show Face à l'info on the CNEWS channel, known polemist Eric Zemmour expressed violent racist remarks against migrants. He explicitly stated his lack of interest towards children who die while trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea: “I don’t care […] To defend my children, I prefer that the other dies". Zemmour then called for any immigration to France to be forcefully halted through removing existing rights: "There is illegal immigration: we have to stop it by sending them back. There is legal immigration: we have to stop it by removing their rights".
March 2020: Commenting on the COVID-19 pandemic on the CNEWS channel, Eric Zemmour made an unfounded claim: “Muslims say to policemen ‘this is a disease for White people, we are protected by Allah’."
July 2020: An episode on TV talk show CNEWS broadcasted on July 16th explored the question: “Does France have to apologize for its past?” On the show, journalist Véronique Jacquier talked about the past French colonisation of Algeria, stating: “France colonized Algeria in order to stop the Berber/Barbary pirates and the slavery in Mediterranea organized at this time by the Muslims", ending with: "In 1830, Algeria was nothing". This was a clear attempt to rewrite French and Algerian history, presenting France as the hero ‘saving’ Algeria from Muslims and helping the country to build what it is today.
November 2020: On the CNEWS channel, Elisabeth Levy, Editor-in-Chief of the French conservative magazine Causeur, said that Muslim women should have taken their headscarf off for a week in honour of Samuel Paty, the teacher beheaded for having shown caricatures of the prophet Muhammad during a lesson on free expression.“I am surprised none of them have today [removed their veil] in honour, or tact, of Samuel Paty, because the veil is also the uniform of the enemies of France,” Levy said. While there is no justification for the gruesome murder of the teacher, Levy is fostering harmful divisions, pitting Muslims against the rest of French society.
Seeing as channels like CNEWS run on advertising money, many saw this as a step in the right direction for fighting hate. However, not everyone was so pleased. Eric Ciotti, politician for The Republicans, was one of several who voiced their opinion online: "Decathlon who stops its ads on CNEWS and boycott the journalists Pascal Praud, Christine Kelly or Eric Zemmour... The same company who used to sell Islamist hijab for running in its shops". Fellow politician Valérie Boyer stated: "Decathlon and its understanding of freedom. The same Decathlon who used to defend the hijab and the burkini". The Patriots politician Florian Philippot also chimed in: "Decathlon who complies with totalitarian injunctions from the debate's enemies. The hijab company who obeys to the pressure of those who want only one intolerance speech to be authorized and that any opposition be banished. Boycott Decathlon: no Decathlon present under Christmas tree!”
The “Islamist hijab” that these politicians are referring to is a running product Decathlon developed for women who wear a head covering. It caused a stir in some circles in France when it was launched in 2019, with many politicians, mainly from the right, denouncing the product, claiming it is contrary to the French concept of “laïcité.” Decathlon also received a lot of hateful comments on social media and through customer service channels, some of which they shared on their Twitter account. Some commentators claimed that the running hijab was a manifestation of the Islamisation of France and a Muslim Brotherhood tactic. By pulling their advertising from CNEWS, Decathlon has seemed to have rattled the same circles once again.
We can view this reaction, though unsettling, as a sign that campaigns like the one run by Sleeping Giants do work. Big companies pulling their advertising have an impact, otherwise politicians would not be commenting on the topic. The UK-based campaign Stop Funding Hate, which uses a similar model to Sleeping Giants, explains why targeting advertisers is so important in the fight against hate: “The overwhelming majority of people in the UK don’t buy The Sun, Daily Mail or any other publications that uses hate to get clicks. Yet most of us probably do shop with a company that advertises in them. Newspaper editors have a strong incentive to run sensationalist anti-migrant headlines: it boosts their readership – and that means they can earn more from advertising.” When that advertising is taken away, these publications are forced to rethink their editorial strategies and publish more ethical content.
There are many ways to fight hate speech in the media, and targeting advertisers is an extremely effective method when done successfully. Next time you spot a hateful news story, have a look at who is choosing to advertise alongside this content and ask: is this ethical?
