An organization that previously boasted about pressuring advertisers to cease business with conservative news outlets removed references to that work from the front page of its website shortly after Republicans won back control of the federal government in November, a Washington Examiner review found.
Check My Ads Institute is an activist organization founded in 2022 to stop advertising dollars from supporting what it deems to be disinformation or hate speech. An archived version of the group’s website from just after Election Day included a section titled “Our playbook works.” Underneath the heading, Check My Ads bragged about allegedly cutting advertising funding to Breitbart News by 90%, taking away “(almost) all” of Tucker Carlson’s cable ad revenue, creating “consequences for Fox News spreading election disinformation,” and getting advertisers to drop over 50 “insurrectionist outlets.”
All of this has since been scrubbed.
Before Check My Ads edited the homepage of its website, it had prompted visitors to view a page documenting the group’s “confirmed” victories. The page included information on its efforts to deplatform conservative media. Now, it hosts just three apolitical posts about Google facilitating advertising for scammers. Historically, the group has instructed activists to contact advertisers directly and demand they stop purchasing ad space next to right-of-center content to preserve “brand safety.”
“Freedom is choice,” the organization’s “about” page currently reads. “Our team works closely with consumers, brands, and regulators to defend your freedom from the industry’s most shameful, irresponsible practices.”
Now, the regulators Check My Ads seeks to work with will be answerable to a Republican White House and Senate — institutions that have recently become much more hostile to explicitly left-of-center nonprofits, especially those in the business of policing “disinformation.” The move could be an attempt by Check My Ads to distance itself from its past work so it can continue to influence public policy.
Check My Ads’s most recent tax filings show that it spent $173,996, about 15% of its total expenditures, working with policymakers and other partners to effect change in 2023.
While Check My Ads may have edited its web presence to be less overtly hostile to conservatives, clues are scattered around the internet and public records documenting the organization’s ties to the broader progressive movement.
Democracy Fund, a nonprofit grantmaker chaired and funded by liberal billionaire Pierre Omidyar, and the Ford Foundation, are two of the largest players in the left-of-center finance world. Omidyar, for instance, has been a major funder of efforts to discredit President Donald Trump and Elon Musk, such as Democratic political committees and a campaign to block Musk’s acquisition of Twitter. Meanwhile, the Ford Foundation has a long history of funding liberal activism and participated in several public-private partnerships with the Biden administration.
The Ford Foundation gave Check My Ads $400,000 between 2022 and 2023, and Democracy Fund donated close to $1 million to the group over the same period, according to tax filings. The two constitute a large portion of Check My Ads’s funding, as the group brought in roughly $2.2 million in total revenue during 2023.
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Check My Ads leadership also has links to both the Democratic Party and other progressive groups.
Nandini Jammi, the organization’s chief strategy officer and co-founder, also co-founded Sleeping Giants, a social media activism organization that was involved in intense campaigns to get advertisers to cut business ties with Breitbart and other conservative outlets. Claire Atkin, co-founder and chief executive officer of Check My Ads, regularly amplifies liberal content on her social media and has accused Musk of being a Nazi. Both Atkin and Jammi have cited progressive Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) as an inspiration for their work.
Joan Donovan, one of the organization’s board members, recently promoted the anti-Tesla protests spreading across the country. Some of the protests have included acts of vandalism and have led to arrests.
Despite this, the organization maintains that it is nonpartisan.
One of Check My Ads’s largest ongoing projects is advocating for Google to be broken up via antitrust enforcement. This aligns with the goals of Omidyar, one of their primary funders.
Check My Ads did not respond to a request for comment.