- Today we're talking about the new YouTube ad-pocalypse,
the truth about a mother and her son's murder charges,
why some 16-year-olds and corporations
can now vote in elections.
We're gonna talk about all that and so much more
on today's brand new "Philip DeFranco Show,"
your daily dive into the news.
So hit that like button and let's just jump into it.
Starting with YouTube's new ad-pocalypse is here,
but a key thing is that it's not happening the same way
that we've seen in the past.
Right, in the past, some journalists would find ads
playing next to like an ISIS video,
or people could find videos of really scary
and creepy being fed to kids, right?
And that scared sponsors away for a certain amount of time.
But this time the sky may be falling
because a new report alleges
that Google hasn't been following its own ads standards
for roughly three years.
And the ads in question come from YouTube,
but they're not ads that run directly on the site, right,
'cause YouTube also has deals to run video ads
on a variety of other websites
where Google charges a premium.
A premium, where among other things
that ensures that ads will go on reputable sites
before the page's main content.
The audio is supposed to be on
and brands do not have to pay for ads that get skipped.
But now research from Adalytics,
which is obtained by "The Wall Street Journal"
claims that Google skirts those standards
around 80% of the time
and doing so by placing the ads
of small, muted autoplay videos
to the side of the main content on sites
that are not up to Google's own monetization standards.
Meaning sites that traffic misinformation
and publish clickbait and pirated content.
And the claim is that this is not a small scale problem.
With it reported that researchers got this data
by monitoring campaigns from over 1000 brands
that got billions of ad impressions
between 2020 and this year.
With the brand said to have gotten
substandard ad placements, including Johnson and Johnson,
American Express, Samsung, Sephora, Macy's,
Disney+, and "The Wall Street Journal" itself,
and even government agencies like Medicare, the US Army,
and New York City municipal government being impacted.
And as you might guess, people aren't happy about this
with some ad buyers saying they want their money back.
With Joshua Lowcock, which Joshy buddy,
what was middle school and high school like for you
with a last name like that.
That doesn't just not get addressed,
but I'm getting sidetracked here.
Josh is the global Chief Media Officer
at the ad agency UM Worldwide,
and he told the Journal,
"This is an unacceptable breach of trust by YouTube.
"Google must fix this and fully refund clients
"for any fraud and impressions
"that failed to meet Google's own policies.
Lowcock out.
And another executive at the digital ad agency AIDEM
saying, "I feel cheated.
"What I requested to buy was not what I got.
"This should entitle me to a refund for invalid traffic."
And if we're talking refunds,
that would be incredibly costly to Google
with Adalytics's report noting that this misalignment
might have cost media buyers
up to billions of digital ad dollars.
Now all that said, for its part, Google has defended itself
against the accusations, telling the Journal
that many of the claims here are just inaccurate
and adding, "As part of our brand safety efforts,
"we regularly remove ads from partner sites
"that violate our policies
"and we'll take any appropriate actions
"once the full report is shared with us."
With Google also claiming that the vast majority
of video ads that it sells are served on YouTube,
not third party sites.
With that you have Adalytics saying they found
that more than half the budget buyers spend on ad bundles
go to non-YouTube pages.
Which if true is why ad buyers would be incredibly mad.
With the Journal reporting
that brands pay around $100 for every 1000 completed views
for third party ads under the premium rate deal,
because they wanna avoid having those crappy ads
that are in the margins, which only cost $5
per 1000 instances of the ads.
So, you'd be talking about a very big difference
between what was paid for and what you got.
Which is why some have equated this
to a multi-billion dollar scam.
But ultimately, we're gonna have to wait
to see how things play out,
especially as this could get ugly really fast.
And then this is one of the craziest stories today
and I think it really highlights how important it is
that people film things, right.
So, on June 18th
at a restaurant on the south side of Chicago,
35-year-old Carlishia Hood gets into an argument
with a man in line, 32-year-old Jeremy Brown.
Early reports saying the argument gets heated.
Carlishia's 14-year-old son then enters the building
and shoots Brown.
With a man then running outta the restaurant
and Carlishia allegedly ordering her son to shoot him again
before they got into their car and drove away.
With Brown suffering two gunshot wounds,
he died on the scene.
Carlishia and her son were then identified
by Brown's girlfriend, who was also at the restaurant
during the time of the shooting.
And they turned themselves in a few days later,
with them both then being charged with murder
and Carlishia being held on $3 million bail.
But then boom, Monday, massive news.
Both she and her son walk outta the county jail
with all charges dropped.
And the only reason that was even possible
is police got ahold of video footage
from moments before the shooting,
and it showed that during the altercation
between Brown and Carlishia,
it didn't just get heated
where they were yelling at each other.
Brown literally started punching Carlishia in the face
and that is when her son started shooting.
And so the Cook County State's Attorney dropped the charges
against Carlishia and her son with one legal analyst saying,
"You have the right to use deadly force to stop that force
"against another person.
"And that's exactly what happened in this case.
"And that's exactly why the state's attorney's office
"dropped this case today."
And adding, "This goes beyond an injustice.
"Frankly, it's a miscarriage of justice
"as to what happened to this woman and her son."
Carlishia actually spoke about the situation
in a press conference with her lawyers yesterday.
- Never in a million years would I have imagined
being brutally attacked, beaten, and then arrested.
- And very big, during that conference,
they announced that she is now suing the city of Chicago
and the five officers who arrested her.
With her attorneys saying that she was falsely arrested
and maliciously prosecuted
and adding a promise of more lawsuits in the future.
With one of her attorneys, Brandon Brown, going on to say.
- If any one of you were to replace Carlishia Hood
with your mother, with your sister, with your daughter.
If your mother or sister or daughter were attacked
in a restaurant when she's trying to order a cheeseburger,
would you expect that she would be arrested?
What would you do in that situation?
- And then, we're switching things up today.
There's no D-bag of the Day just a BAMF.
And that being 18-year-old Josh Logue from Colorado.
With things starting pretty basic,
Josh getting out his hobby drone after a heavy rainstorm.
Just wanting a bird's eye view
of a nearby creek that had overflowed.
But when Josh was getting close to the creek,
he saw a massive sinkhole in the road,
and not just that, an SUV flipped over inside of it.
And so, he immediately got his dad and a neighborhood
and they drove out
and finding two people in their sixties
who were trapped in the car with water covering
about halfway up the doors and still getting higher.
So they call 911, help quickly comes,
they rescue the people trapped,
they take them to the hospital.
And there's a good reason to believe
that these people would be dead without Josh.
Because as it turns out,
parts of the road that the sinkhole had formed on
were closed due to wet conditions
and the bridge where it formed was mostly outta sight.
And the hole was so deep
the flipped SUV wasn't even visible from the ground.
Josh's drone may have been the only way
these people could have even been found
before it was too late
with him even saying, "That was crazy to think about.
"If I would've been down here 20, maybe 30 minutes later,
"they could have been dead."
Which I mean, it's reported
that Josh wants to be a professional drone pilot.
I'm thinking "literally save people's lives"
gonna look good on a resume.
And that's why Josh, you are our BAMF of the Day.
And then, oh, sleep, quite possibly the best thing ever.
But only when you actually get it.
Being busy with work, kids,
and then you add on all of life's typical stressors,
and you know, I don't always sleep well
and that's even when I'm trying to go to bed on time.
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And then, this Russia Wagner situation
just keeps getting messier and messier
and more confusing by the day, right.
'Cause yesterday it seemed like maybe things were done,
at least until our boy Prigo,
you know, drank some poison tea or slipped out a window.
'Cause yesterday, Wagner's leader
was officially in Belarus to start his exile.
Those charges against him officially dropped.
But since then, juicy new tidbits have been coming out.
Things like the Russian FSB,
which you can think of as their FBI
knowing about the insurrection attempt
at least two days before it started,
which could undermine Wagner's claim
that it was an impromptu decision
in response to being attacked by the Ministry of Defense.
Though that also wouldn't be the only thing undermining it.
Then there's the fact that US officials are claiming
that things could have been very different.
That's because supposedly very senior Russian General knew
about Wagner's plan as well.
And there also being widespread speculation
that he may have been involved in planning it.
Although as filming, it's just breaking
that sources in the Ministry of Defense
are saying he was arrested.
That's probably a clear sign
that authorities think that he was up to something.
But the most whiplash inducing piece of this whole story,
though not surprising,
is whether Wagner's leader will actually get in trouble.
This guy, in the span of a few days
went from being called a traitor
to having his charges dropped to, oh wait,
they're actually not dropped to Putin officially saying
in a speech that the charges were dropped.
So it seemed like water under the bridge at least publicly.
But now we're gettin' the news
that Putin might be trying to get around his deal
to drop treason charges against Wagner's leadership
by instead looking into their finances.
'Cause during a speech to soldiers,
Putin pointed out that Wagner itself
was pretty much fully financed by the state
and got a billion dollars between 2022 and 2023.
And actually on top of that, Wagner's leader
was an oligarch that had a catering company
that had a $1 billion contract to feed the army,
which Putin added, "I do hope that as part of his work,
"no one stole anything.
"But we will, of course, investigate all this."
And a very important thing here
is that Putin knows well that money was skimmed off the top.
That's how Russia's entire house of cards is held up,
skimmers and scammers and backstabbing snakes.
And it really just sounds like Putin's looking for a reason
'cause he looks very weak right now.
He went from Putin the untouchable
to he almost got marched on by the caterer.
I just don't see how things go back
to business as usual without someone dying.
And then if you are 16 or 17 years old,
you can now vote in local elections and even hold office
but only if you live in the town of Brattleboro, Vermont.
Which you probably don't,
because it has a population of just over 7,300.
But still, big news for the people there.
And this move comes after the town voted
to amend its charter to allow 16 and 17 year olds
to vote in local elections.
And it would also let them serve
as members of the Town Select Board
and as representatives for its annual town meeting
where key local issues are decided.
Now, interestingly, the decision was initially vetoed
by Vermont's Republican governor,
but the Democrat controlled legislature
has now overturned that veto.
Even though we're talking about a small place,
this is actually very historic,
because while a handful of cities and towns,
both in California and Maryland have let residents
as young as 16 vote in either local
or school board elections,
organizers say that this is different.
"The Associated Press" reporting
that this new charter is the first one in the country
where 16 year olds can vote in municipal elections
and hold the highest elected offices.
But also, we gotta talk about a different kind
of voting story, because while we have a town here
expanding voting rights to 16 and 17 year olds,
another town in Delaware
is trying to do the same for corporations.
Yeah, Seaford, which is home
to around 8,000 actual human people,
recently amended its charter to give businesses a vote
in local contests.
Though notably, under the proposed change,
a person who both lives in Seaford
and operates a business there
would still only be allowed to vote once.
But if you're a person who doesn't live in Seaford,
but you do own a business
you would be allowed to vote twice.
Once as a citizen in the town that you actually live in
and once as a business in Seaford.
Which you might say what's the difference
one vote gonna make?
Well, in Seaford, possibly a very big one.
Because looking into it, there are 234 businesses
registered in Seaford and only 340 people voted
in the last municipal elections.
We're talking about opening the door
to a very massive swing here,
one that could seriously change the outcome of elections
by giving businesses so much sway.
Now, notably here, this is not a done deal, right.
Before the charter can take effect,
it has to be approved by both chambers
of the Delaware State legislature
and signed by the governor.
But also, that could very well happen
because this is actually not the first time
a town has done this.
Businesses actually already have voting rights
in a handful of other jurisdictions.
And this could end up having an even bigger impact
because Delaware's famous for being the go-to state
for registering a business
due to its lax registration and corporate tax laws.
Like literally in Delaware, the number of businesses
outnumber the actual number of human residents
by nearly two to one.
But with all that, I gotta ask, what are your thoughts here?
Do you think it makes sense
or are you on the side of, no, it doesn't make sense.
And maybe even you're part of the advocates
who argue that it amounts to voter suppression
because it dilutes the vote of the people,
like the actual human person.
And then, you're about to see how bad
this Hollywood shutdown can really get.
And that's because in addition to all the writers
who have been striking this whole time,
the actors may be joining in just two days.
Because as you might remember, the Screen Actors Guild,
aka SAG, voted overwhelmingly
to approve a strike authorization vote.
Meaning that once their contract with studios expires
on June 30th, Guild leadership has the power
to call for a strike if negotiations are unsuccessful.
And we're two days away
and actors haven't been backing down.
Over the weekend, SAG President Fran Drescher
posted a video suggesting that things
will be promising for actors.
- I just want to assure you
that we are having an extremely productive negotiations
that are laser focused on all of the crucial issues
you told us are most important to you.
And we're standing strong
and we're going to achieve a seminal deal.
- But according to "Rolling Stone"
that message hasn't comforted many actors,
with many still concerned that leadership will settle
for a deal that doesn't cover all their requests.
So over 300 actors, including big names
like Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep, Ben Stiller,
Keke Palmer, Amy Poehler, Quinta Brunson,
all signed a letter to SAG saying,
"When we say us actors are ready to strike
"we really mean it."
With "Deadline" publishing the letter in full
and in it, actors noting that striking
is obviously difficult
and brings upon hardships no one wants,
"but we are prepared to strike if it comes to that.
"We are concerned by the idea that SAG-AFTRA members
"may be ready to make sacrifices that leadership is not."
Adding, "This is an unprecedented inflection point
"in our industry and what might be considered a good deal
"in any other years is simply not enough.
"We want you to know that we would rather go on strike
"than compromise on these fundamental points.
"And we believe that if we settle
"for a less than transformative deal,
"the future of our union and our craft
"will be undermined."
And closing by saying, "This is no time
"to meet in the middle.
"We want SAG's leadership to fight for everything.
"And if you can't do that,
"we are joining the writers on the picket lines."
Which, again, this is just speculation
but the fact that they did this
also makes it feel like maybe that's what's been happening.
Fran Drescher and leadership
may not actually be about that fight,
especially given some of the lukewarm stuff
that Fran Drescher said in the early days
of the writer's strike.
But we'll see.
The clock is still ticking right now.
And that's where today's daily dive into the news ends.
For more news you need to know,
I got you covered here or in those links, but thank you,
and as always, my name's Philip DeFranco,
you've just been Phil-ed in,
I love yo faces, and I'll see you tomorrow.