What do the war in Ukraine, toilet cleaner, and the dying news industry have in common? In short: online ads.
Jesse Brown
Host & Publisher
Cherise Seucharan
Reporter, CANADALAND
Jonathan Goldsbie
News Editor
Tristan Capacchione
Audio Editor & Technical Producer
Sarah Lawrynuik
Senior Producer
Kieran Oudshoorn
Managing Editor, Podcasts
Hosted by Jesse Brown
The digital advertising industry is worth billions, but many companies don’t actually know where their ad dollars end up. Programmatic ad exchanges and other third-party platforms have enabled companies to buy ads without the hassle of going to each seller. But in doing so, these ad exchanges have opened the door for fake news and disinformation sites to profit. As reporter Cherise Seucharan finds out, it has become easier and easier for these sites to proliferate, while real news websites lose out.
Featured in this episode:
Nandini Jammi and Claire Atkin, co-founders of Check My Ads; Augustine Fou, anti-ad fraud consultant; Danny Rogers, co-founder and executive director at The Global Disinformation Index
“Artificial intelligence was considered the realm of lunatics and wackos and eccentrics. So they couldn't get hired at really elite universities in the United States. [The] University of Toronto hired them, and then it turned out they were really right and all the elite people were really wrong.” - Stephen Marche, author of “Was Linguistic A.I. Created by Accident?”
Israel’s Ambassador to Canada, Iddo Moed, sits down with Jesse for a candid and intense discussion about how Israel’s actions during the war are impacting Canadians.
It was the largest art fraud in history. The sheer volume of rip-offs numbering in the thousands. And the scheme that shocked the art world sprang from, of all places, Thunder Bay. How did the fraudsters hatch such a plan from such an unlikely place? And what part did a cold case murder play in finally exposing their cultural crime?
Cue the sad trombone sounds for Rebel Media, who just lost an appeal to qualify for federal journalism tax credits. Where will they get funding from now?
Canada’s former ambassador to Israel, Norman Spector, joins to unpack the narratives and larger geopolitical context of the current conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.
A small Canadian firm wants to build the largest goldmine in Brazil. But there’s no shortage of questions, allegations, investigations and legal battles swirling around the proposed project. Are local subsistence miners making false claims to drive Canadian competition off their land? Are Canadian mining executives violating human rights for an estimated $8 billion payout? Why is the UN investigating? What should the role of the Canadian government be in all this?
