About six weeks ago, I put ads back on the site. I wanted to see if we had enough traffic to make any money, and I wanted to give our paying members one of their perks back: being able to avoid some or all of the ads.
I didn’t pay much attention to what was in the ads after the first few days. Since I usually look at the site as a logged-in member, I didn’t see them. The ad company had said that there wouldn’t be any offensive ads, so I set them and forgot about them.
Then yesterday, a reader asked me if I knew that some of the “survey questions” went to pro-Trump sites. I wasn’t sure what the reader meant, since I haven’t posted a survey in a long while. Then I thought of the ads.
Sure enough, many of the ads were “question and vote” ads, where when you clicked an answer you got taken to another site. And, some of those were pro-Trump sites.
You know, I’m okay with ads for many things: hair spray, financial advisors, travel packages. But sending our readers to pro-Trump sites? Nope, not doing it.
So, I’ve pulled the ads down. It’s a little frustrating, because I want to reward those who pay for memberships with perks, and avoiding ads is a common one. But, it’s not worth helping support the Big Lie.
For now, ads are gone again. And if you have any ideas about perks for paying members, send them on.
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