April 25, 2022
SHARE
CANADALAND
#774 The Ad Money Fuelling Fake News
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
Senior Production Supervisor
Sarah Lawrynuik
Senior Producer
Kieran Oudshoorn
Managing Editor, Podcasts

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

Further reading:

Support Canadaland at canadaland.com/join

Sponsors: PolicyMe, Oxio.

Additional Music is by Audio Network

More from this series
“ If they wanna draw Garfield and expose his  genitals,  you know, that's up to the fans.” -Nathen Mazri
September 7, 2026
“Everything changed when I treated it like a 9-5.”
September 3, 2026
“ I was fired because I condemned Hamas by calling them Nazis.” - Paul Finlayson
August 31, 2026
“Economic sovereignty is military sovereignty. Without it, we will become a victim.” -Cameron Chell
August 24, 2026
The Chinese authorities put my whole family in jail. My parents, my brothers and sisters, my wife, my three children. At that time, we used to say jail. Nobody used to say concentration camps. - Prime Minister Abdulahat Nur
August 17, 2026
“Sometimes the transplants weren't done in a sterile environment. They weren't done in a hospital. They were done in an apartment somewhere. There are some very bad black markets.” - Nobel Laureate economist Alvin Roth
August 10, 2026
How Canadian Missionaries are partly responsible for modern day North Korea and other stories.
August 6, 2026
I am now the Zionist sellout, horrendous traitor. People are sending me death threats, people wanting to kill me because I don't conform to some Western-concocted notion of what being pro-Palestine is. - Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib 
August 3, 2026
all podcasts arrow All Podcasts
CANADALAND