Refugee charity ad appeared on official Assad YouTube channel
- 6 years ago
SAN BRUNO, CALIFORNIA - A refugee charity has suspended advertising with Google after their ad appeared on a video on Bashar Al Assad's YouTube channel.
The news come after a TomoNews investigation last week showed how Syrian dictator Bashar Al-Assad's official channel was displaying ads from massive brands on YouTube.
The list of companies appearing there and on another Syri was large, including Samsung, Lexus and even DonaldJTrump.com
A video featuring Assad also displayed ad a from UK refugee charity, Sponsorrefugees.org. TomoNews reached out to them with with our findings.
"We were unaware our adverts were being placed on this channel," a spokesperson for the charity said in an emailed statement. "We have suspended advertising with Google Ads and have asked they clarify where our adverts will be placed and give us assurances that our adverts will only run on appropriate channels."
The channel in question was YouTube.com/PresidencySy. Another channel, not displaying the refugee ad, but still showing ads from companies, was ORTAS Videos or the General Organisation of Radio and TV for Syria. Syrian government websites linked to both channels.
To be clear, we don't know if the Syrian regime was making money from these advertisements.
After we reached out to Google for comment on Thursday, those channels were soon shut down. Writing in an emailed statement a rep for the company said then: "We disable videos and accounts that repeatedly violate our Community Guidelines or Terms of Service and when we are required by law to do so."
The news come after a TomoNews investigation last week showed how Syrian dictator Bashar Al-Assad's official channel was displaying ads from massive brands on YouTube.
The list of companies appearing there and on another Syri was large, including Samsung, Lexus and even DonaldJTrump.com
A video featuring Assad also displayed ad a from UK refugee charity, Sponsorrefugees.org. TomoNews reached out to them with with our findings.
"We were unaware our adverts were being placed on this channel," a spokesperson for the charity said in an emailed statement. "We have suspended advertising with Google Ads and have asked they clarify where our adverts will be placed and give us assurances that our adverts will only run on appropriate channels."
The channel in question was YouTube.com/PresidencySy. Another channel, not displaying the refugee ad, but still showing ads from companies, was ORTAS Videos or the General Organisation of Radio and TV for Syria. Syrian government websites linked to both channels.
To be clear, we don't know if the Syrian regime was making money from these advertisements.
After we reached out to Google for comment on Thursday, those channels were soon shut down. Writing in an emailed statement a rep for the company said then: "We disable videos and accounts that repeatedly violate our Community Guidelines or Terms of Service and when we are required by law to do so."