With Ad Money, Ipsun Follows its Values

Ipsun Supports NPR and joins Stop Hate For Profit campaign

Ipsun is proud to have made two very important decisions recently regarding the way we spend our advertising dollars. One is a vote for fact-based, respectful reporting, and the other is a recrimination of the spread of hate-speech and white nationalism.

Supporting the Good

Hopefully you’ve already heard our positive decision on the airwaves – we are now advertising on WAMU, our area’s NPR station. We chose WAMU because we believe in public radio, and we trust NPR. In fact, NPR is consistently rated very highly for factual reporting, thorough sourcing and accurate details.

We also appreciate that WAMU respects listeners’ intelligence, and presents diverse and authentic perspectives in a way that encourages civil dialogue. For these reasons we made the decision to put most of our advertising money toward NPR on WAMU. Listen for us at 88.5 FM! 

Repudiating the Bad

Our second decision has been to stop all advertising on Facebook unless changes are made. We signed the pledge at StopHateforProfit.org, and joined thousands of other companies in our call for Facebook to stop promoting hate, bigotry, racism, antisemitism and violence.

Facebook’s $70 billion in revenue and $17 billion in profit could be spent for good: getting out the vote, promoting a more equal world for all people, helping people get out of poverty, solving climate change, and supporting frontline workers and communities. But it’s not.

Instead, recently Facebook has adopted a policy allowing climate deniers to bypass the platform’s fact-checking process. Additionally, they have allowed incitement to violence against  protesters fighting for racial justice in America in the wake of the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, Ahmaud Arbery, Rayshard Brooks and so many others. They named Breitbart News a “trusted news source” and made The Daily Caller a “fact checker” despite both publications having records of working with known white nationalists. And they turned a blind eye to  blatant voter suppression on their platform.

We say enough is enough. Any small boost our company may get as a result of advertising on Facebook will never be worth promoting hate, racism and violence. We will not be a part of it. We will maintain our presence on the platform for the time being, but our ad money will be spent at NPR, where we can be sure it is used to help inform the public in a fair, accurate manner. 

Join us by supporting responsible journalism and signing the Stop Hate for Profit petition!

You can join the effort first by becoming a member of WAMU. When you give to WAMU, your tax-deductible gift helps make all of NPR’s great shows possible, including our all-time fave, The Kojo Nnamdi Show!

Next, you can sign the #StopHateForProfit petition and follow and share the campaign. The petition’s demands include:

Thanks Ipsun family! We know you are always with us in the fight for a better world. 

Questions or Thoughts?