“discrete” Scientology ad?

  • onlyinfrance · Member ·

    I don’t mind having discrete, non-controversial ads, but I certainly don’t want my blog to be associated with the Church of Scientology, or any other “Church” for that matter. WordPress, how can you allow this? Please stop it.

    The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

  • thesacredpath · Member ·

    Contact staff directly with a link to where that ad is showing and discuss it with them: http://support.wordpress.com/contact/ .

  • raincoaster · Member ·

    Yes, those ads show up every time I post about Anonymous, too. It’s my understanding that as long as the ad is legal and not obscene, you’re stuck with it. Staff are not prepared to filter ads for “philosophical match” with the blog.

  • aw1923 · Member ·

    Well they should really consider doing so. I have never been able to see advertisements on any wordpress.COM blog yet but in my stats it shows several times that people have clicked on a google ad and if that is the case as I suspect it is then I would definitely prefer that none of those ads point to a rightwing extremist site that promotes hatred (IMO).
    And I wish we could be told which blog posts specifically will display ads on it. I know wordpress has this right to insert ads but I just wanted to state my opinion.
    hm…maybe wordpress should give an option of what type of ads appear on our blogs. Options are great :)

  • raincoaster · Member ·

    I’m absolutely sure they would charge for that. Can you IMAGINE how much work it would be to examine every possible ad Adsense wants to put on a given site?

  • aw1923 · Member ·

    yeah, but it’s just a suggestion

  • feartheseeds · Member ·

    They started popping up on Facebook, but only on the account I set up for my mental health / recovery blog friends. I’d be absolutely mortified if they were popping up on my actual blog. It’d be like blogging about recovering from alcohol addiction and finding out ads for John Dewer & Sons were running alongside my recovery manifesto.

  • husdal · Member ·

    feartheseeds, believe me, they do pop up on your blog, too. You can be sure of that.

  • justjennifer · Member ·

    That’s the trouble with targeted ads. If one writes about alcohol recovery, more likely they will.

    Of course we do have the option of buying the no-ads upgrade to remove them entirely.

  • feartheseeds · Member ·

    People with credit cards have that option… people who are using this service primarily because it’s free, sometimes they don’t have that option. I’ll be putting something in my sidebar about this tomorrow. I really should have done it a lot sooner.

  • phrees · Member ·

    Happened to me too. So I responded with a limerick

    Cult Warning 1

    I wish WordPress would give us filters, or the ability to downvote ads (like Digg).

  • tellyworth · Staff ·

    Think of it this way: you’re costing Scientology money, because they’re paying to disagree with you.

    The No Ads upgrade is a guaranteed fix.

  • phrees · Member ·

    Hi tellyworth.

    I don’t think Scientology is paying to disagree with us. There’s no dialogue – it’s an ad, not a comment. They are paying to be inserted into and associated with our content. The placement in the flow of our content suggests we support and condone them, which we don’t. This is more akin to the unauthorized use of a person’s image in an advertising campaign without the consent of the model.

  • justjennifer · Member ·

    @phrees-Put a disclaimer on your blog about the ads. Many have done so.

  • tellyworth · Staff ·

    Yup – disclaimer or No Ads upgrade are your options if there is an advertiser you disagree with.

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