What you need to know in advertising today
"Given the public prominence of this organization, we want to take a moment to explain how we came to this decision and why," Facebook VP and deputy general counsel Paul Grewal said in a press release on Friday night.
Grewal noted that another company, Strategic Communication Laboratories (SCL), was also suspended. By booting the companies from its platform "pending further information," Facebook will no longer allow them to buy ads or manage their pages.
To read more about why the controversial data-analysis firm was suspended, click here.
In other news:
Facebook is under huge pressure from politicians in the US and UK after The Guardian reported Cambridge Analytica, a Trump-linked research firm, accessed personal information of 50 million people via a Facebook app. Facebook suspended Cambridge Analytica from its platform for violation of its terms of service.
Facebook has banned the whistleblower behind the Cambridge Analytica revelations, Christoper Wylie. Wylie is unable to use WhatsApp, Facebook, or Instagram.
Facebook is also investigating whether one of its own employees knew about the Cambridge Analytica data leak. Social psychology researcher Joseph Chancellor works at Facebook but his position is under review, according to Bloomberg.
YouTube Kids, an app intended to be a child-friendly version of YouTube, shows conspiracy theory videos in kids. The app contains videos by conspiracy theorist David Icke, who claims the world is ruled by reptile-human hybrids.
Twitter will ban ads relating to cryptocurrencies, after Facebook and Google did the same. The ban will apply in the next fortnight, according to Sky.
Condé Nast is leaving the "Concert" ad sales partnership formed by NBCUniversal and Vox Media in March 2017, Digiday reports. Condé Nast wouldn't comment on why it left the partnership, but said it would partner again with Concert under the right circumstances.
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