How Big Business Funds Terrorism and Extremism

@owlwings (43915)
Cambridge, England
February 11, 2017 5:34am CST
Large national and international companies are funding terrorism and extremist groups. No doubt, if they were aware of the fact and knew how to stop it, they would do so. It works like this. Large companies and charities spend enormous sums on advertising. It is worth their while doing so because the advertising generates more revenue for the company than it costs to advertise. If they did not advertise, fewer people would buy their products. The ads are posted to many sites by companies like Google Adsense which are called ad providers and these ad providers share some of the money advertisers pay them with the people owning the sites and places where the ads are shown. This, of course, is all quite usual and it's the way that many sites (including myLot) pay for their existence on the Internet. It's also the way that many bloggers and people with YouTube channels make, sometimes, quite a sizeable income. The problem is that the ad providers are often not too particular about the sites and channels the ads are shown on and the advertisers are often not aware that their ads are being run alongside articles and videos with which they might violently disagree. Many extremist and terrorist groups post videos on YouTube and some of the more popular ones get over a million hits. Since ads posted alongside the video can typically earn the person posting the video $7 or $8 per 1000 hits, some of these videos are making tens of thousands of dollars ... which is going into the pockets of organisations like the Islamic State and a violent, pro-Nazi group called Combat 18. OK. That's the information (if you have signed up to read the Times site in full, you can read a more detailed article at the link below). My question is: How do you think that we can effectively ensure that companies and charities whom we respect and trust do not inadvertently fund such terrorist and extremist factions? What other thoughts do you have on this matter?
Some of the world’s biggest brands are unwittingly funding Islamic extremists, white supremacists and pornographers by advertising on their websites, The Times can reveal. Advertisements for...
17 people like this
10 responses
@marguicha (215792)
• Chile
11 Feb 17
Unfortunatly, I don´t see how this can change, The big companies and charities themselves are not aware of this or don´t have the means to stop it.
3 people like this
@skysnap (20154)
11 Feb 17
I have found that charities seet up by social justice warrior people throough TED Ex and UNESCO often goes to fund terrorism. For example funds raised to help women in such location often end up spending on terrorism. even bill gates foundation is using it's platform for testing new medicine on asian women instead of on animals.
2 people like this
@owlwings (43915)
• Cambridge, England
11 Feb 17
Most such charities do try to make sure that the funds or aid they send is not misappropriated but, yes, I know that it happens.
1 person likes this
@skysnap (20154)
16 Feb 17
@TheHorse Check bill gates foundation's experimental research on Indian women. It's in news.
@TheHorse (206374)
• Walnut Creek, California
16 Feb 17
Asian woman? Where did you read this?
1 person likes this
@LadyDuck (458994)
• Switzerland
11 Feb 17
I know that this happens, but I am very sorry to say that I see no easy solutions to this problem. Sites like Facebook and YouTube have a serious lack of control of the content posted on their sites. I know that there are billions of users, but I think that it's time to create filters to catch dangerous material and dangerous group that profit of those kind of media to make money.We are all paying the terrorists and this is depressing.
2 people like this
@LadyDuck (458994)
• Switzerland
15 Feb 17
@rachael5760 They know how ti finance themselves of course.
@garymarsh6 (23393)
• United Kingdom
11 Feb 17
Call me naive I was not aware of this but now you mention it, it makes sense!
2 people like this
@owlwings (43915)
• Cambridge, England
11 Feb 17
I thought Naive was an Irish girl's name! It hadn't occured to me, really, until I had an email from 38Degrees about it.
1 person likes this
@pgntwo (22408)
• Derry, Northern Ireland
11 Feb 17
@owlwings Ah, that's Niamh in spelling ;)
1 person likes this
@JudyEv (326092)
• Rockingham, Australia
11 Feb 17
I had no idea this was happening. And I don't have much idea about what we can do about it.
2 people like this
@tzwrites (4835)
• Romania
20 Feb 17
It's such a complex web, there's not much they can do about it.
1 person likes this
@KrauseHome (36448)
• United States
15 Feb 17
It is interesting when you look at things from the perspective you posted here. I would think that there should be a little stricted security everywhere to keep things like this offline. But unfortunately they have not so now you just need to be kept more aware of what is going on around you and especially while surfing online.
1 person likes this
@TheHorse (206374)
• Walnut Creek, California
16 Feb 17
I'll have to read the article. Sounds plausible. I only give money to beggars on the street whom I can tell are not tied in with terrorist organizations.
1 person likes this
@Poppylicious (11133)
11 Feb 17
I'm not sure there is an easy solution to this. It's difficult to police the internet, which is HUGE!
1 person likes this
@vickyrose (2235)
• Cooma, Australia
12 Feb 17
That's really scary.
1 person likes this