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davey.bsky.social
Davey Alba
@davey.bsky.social
14K followers 1.2K following 240 posts
Bloomberg tech reporter / Google, Big Tech, misinfo / https://daveyalba.com / ask for my Signal
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davey.bsky.social
YouTube has eased content rules in the Trump era, narrowing removals & letting controversial creators return—a shift experts say lets more hateful content persist. The platform is now where the politics of consumption flow freely. bloom.bg/3Kaio9w
November 20, 2025 at 5:08 PM
davey.bsky.social
There's a lot more reporting in our story & I hope you’ll read. But what I hope isn’t lost is how YouTube’s scale has let this niche content universe flourish. As George Farmer, who runs the Candace podcast told us, “YouTube is the printing press of the digital age, if you want to call it that.”
George Farmer, who runs the Candace podcast and is Owens’ husband, cast YouTube’s role in stark terms. “YouTube is the printing press of the digital age, if you want to call it that,” he said. He added that podcasting has leaned more conservative in part because many right-leaning voices were “pushed out of the mainstream orbit.” That dynamic has also shaped which advertisers show up: “If you’re pitching to a conservative listener, you’re going to want to be a more conservative brand.” Farmer is also the former chief executive officer of Parler, the social media site that had billed itself as a platform for “uncancelable free speech.”
November 20, 2025 at 5:03 PM
davey.bsky.social
Podcast ads are heavily themed, depending on the show: Candace Owens had 90%+ anti-establishment ads; Kelly/Carlson/Shapiro 80%+ ideology; Nelk Boys 96% masculinity/hobbies. Major brands like DoorDash & BetterHelp also appeared on Rogan & Von's shows. bloom.bg/3Kaio9w
November 20, 2025 at 4:54 PM
davey.bsky.social
And, using data from Podscribe, a 3rd party podcast analytics firm, we made an effort to quantify spending on right-leaning podcasts. The top 10 conservative brands quadrupled monthly ad spend from 2023 to 2025, reaching ~$5M/month in 2025. bloom.bg/3Kaio9w
The top 10 advertisers spending the most on host-read ads on the right-leaning podcasts are investing nearly four times more per month in 2025 than they did on average in 2023. So far this year, those brands have collectively spent about $5 million a month on podcast advertising, according to Bloomberg’s analysis of Podscribe data.
November 20, 2025 at 4:50 PM
davey.bsky.social
We also tracked themes used by the 188 unique advertisers to sell, sorting them into 5 buckets:

3/10 used ideological appeals
~1/4 leveraged alternative health
~1/5 each used anti-establishment or security messages
13% appealed to masculinity

bloom.bg/3Kaio9w
Three in 10 advertisers relied on ideological appeals — emphasizing “pro-life,” Christian, pro-gun, “America first,” or pro-military themes, or attacking Democrats, gender identity or policies they described as liberal. Roughly a quarter promoted the “Make America Healthy Again” agenda or pushed health and wellness products that they framed as natural or an alternative to conventional medicine. About 16% leaned on safety and security themes, while another fifth invoked anti-establishment rhetoric, railing against big corporations, public agencies, or institutions in medicine, education and finance. Several also catered to a distinctly masculine audience, tapping into a segment of the population that, polling data show, came out in force for Trump last year — many of them electrified by the podcasts that were part of this analysis. The strategy of using ideology to persuade someone to make a purchase — especially through an influencer — is powerful, said Emerson Brooking, a resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council who studies online networks. “American culture has built up the idea of brand choice as a political act,” he said. The rise of political — and often right-wing — podcasts, which are an extremely influential force in listeners’ lives and opinions, has “opened the door to a whole industry of politically coded kitsch products that seek to target this exact demographic,” he said.
November 20, 2025 at 4:09 PM
davey.bsky.social
The ads we reviewed were fascinating. They revealed products like Republican Red Winery, Black Rifle Coffee, and XX-XY Athletics—all targeting ideological consumers. Other advertisers included gold companies, debt services counseling for issues like porn addiction, and more bloom.bg/3Kaio9w
November 20, 2025 at 4:06 PM
davey.bsky.social
NEW: For months, my colleagues and I dug into YouTube's conservative airwaves and found a flourishing network of host-read ads on right-leaning podcasts. This phenomenon has enriched hosts, YouTube, and businesses that use ideology to sell. bloom.bg/3Kaio9w
YouTube’s Right-Wing Stars Fuel Boom in Politically Charged Ads By Davey Alba Priyanjana Bengani Leon Yin Ashley Carman Julia Love Rachael Dottle Elena Mejía Technology Big Tech November 20, 2025 On YouTube’s conservative airwaves, podcast hosts tout products that let people buy into the MAGA crowd: Republican Red Winery vintages for toasting the “silent majority;” Black Rifle Coffee for caffeinating gun owners; XX-XY Athletics for workout clothes symbolizing opposition to the “lunacy of the left social agenda.” The popularity of YouTube podcasts among conservatives is driving a boom in small businesses tailoring ads to their millions of listeners, paying hosts like Joe Rogan and Candace Owens to read out promotions in the hope that fans will place orders. The phenomenon has enriched both the hosts and YouTube, supporting further growth of the businesses using ideology to sell. A Bloomberg analysis of host-read ads across nearly 1,000 videos from eight of the platform’s top right-leaning podcasters found that advertisers on the shows routinely tapped into political identity in marketing. At least one host-read ad with a political message appeared in 91% of videos reviewed.
November 20, 2025 at 3:23 PM
davey.bsky.social
In @melissaryan.bsky.social's view, this political climate—in which public officials who try to provide transparency are politicized and attacked—is an even bigger obstacle than budget cuts in the fight against false claims.

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
Trump’s team has already overseen a massive scale back of FEMA’s staffing, funding and programming. As part of a review of contracts, FEMA ended its agreement with ZeroFox, according to a former official familiar with the situation. A FEMA spokesperson confirmed that it ended the ZeroFox contract in April. For Melissa Ryan, founder of Card Strategies, a consulting firm that researches disinformation, the current political climate — in which public officials who attempt to provide transparency are often politicized and attacked — is a bigger obstacle than budget cuts in the fight against false claims. “So many of the new government appointees are Trump loyalists, and attempting to actually respond effectively to disinformation would make whoever made the attempt a target for MAGA and the administration,” she said.
September 18, 2025 at 1:35 PM
davey.bsky.social
FEMA even hired cybersecurity firm ZeroFox to take down misinfo on social media, but the effort was cut short. House Republicans, led by Jim Jordan, were investigating tech companies for alleged censorship; after internal discussions, FEMA quickly ended all social media content removal requests
Afterwards, FEMA put together a Workplace Protection Task Force involving security, intelligence and communications professionals to manage incoming threats. Protective measures included using specialized software to flag personnel previously targeted online as at risk of more harassment. But there were limits to how far the government could influence content moderation. At the time, outspoken Republicans led by House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan were investigating tech companies, alleging that the platforms were censoring conservative viewpoints under federal government pressure. After initially approving ZeroFox to assist with facilitating takedowns, FEMA later asked that the company end all social media content removal requests. Per internal documents, the move came after staff discussions that it wasn’t advisable for the agency to contract for services that took any action beyond passive threat monitoring. ZeroFox declined to comment.
September 18, 2025 at 1:24 PM
davey.bsky.social
NEW: Bloomberg obtained 100s of pages of agency emails & other docs via FOIA, shedding new light on how disaster-related misinfo affects the govt's emergency response, sucks up resources & puts staff at risk.

with @zhirji.bsky.social @jasonleopold.bsky.social

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
Headline: Chaos Inside FEMA as Death Threats Distract from Hurricane Response
September 18, 2025 at 1:08 PM
davey.bsky.social
Scoop: Reddit is in talks with Google to strike a new AI content deal—one that would get the platform paid more for its data, which has become crucial for training Google's AI & powering search results

w/ @rileyraygriffin.bsky.social & @shiringhaffary.bsky.social

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
Headline: Reddit seeks to strike next AI content pact with Google, OpenAI - Moving past a dollars-for-data model, Reddit seeks new deals - The social platform looks to bring new users into its forums Reddit Inc. is in early talks to strike its next content-sharing agreement with Alphabet Inc.’s Google, aiming to extract more value from future deals now that its data plays a prominent role in search results and generative AI training. Reddit, more than a year and a half after its first data-sharing deal with Google for a reported $60 million, is in talks for deeper integration with Google’s AI products, according to executives familiar with the discussions. It’s proposing a new kind of partnership that would encourage users to become active contributors to Reddit’s popular online forums, so Google traffic could help the company grow and generate content for future training.
September 17, 2025 at 3:58 PM
davey.bsky.social
As Mitch Stoltz of @eff.org told me, in the history of antitrust rulings over the past few decades, Mehta’s order on remedies could prove to have an even more minor impact than when Microsoft lost its antitrust case a quarter-century ago.

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
In the history of antitrust rulings over the past few decades, Mehta’s order on remedies could prove to have an even more minor impact than when Microsoft Corp. lost its antitrust case a quarter-century ago, said Mitch Stoltz, senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation who focuses on antitrust issues. “Even though the court didn’t order a breakup of the company following the appeals, I think the case overall had a really significant effect on Microsoft’s conduct,” he said. Some of the conduct remedies that were imposed on Microsoft ironically kept it from hobbling a younger Google 25 years ago, Stoltz argued. “This ruling, I think, is going to be less consequential than that,” he said. “I don’t think it will change Google’s corporate culture.”
September 3, 2025 at 9:48 PM
davey.bsky.social
Even the data-sharing idea was defanged to the point that it is unlikely to meaningfully help competitors, critics said. The details of the court order show how Mehta severely narrowed data-sharing remedies. Google will only have to share a one-time snapshot of its search data with some competitors.
Even the data-sharing idea was defanged to the point that it is unlikely to meaningfully help competitors, critics said. “A snapshot of Google’s search index and some query data will be helpful for competitors, including OpenAI, by giving them data that will improve their results,” said Yory Wurmser, an analyst with Emarketer. But Google hasn’t been compelled to reveal its more sensitive website and personal data that lets it provide tailored responses and run its massive advertising business. “So, it could give smaller competitors a needed boost, but it probably won’t undermine Google too much.” Data-sharing The details of the court order show how Mehta severely narrowed the idea of data-sharing to help competitors. Mehta denied the government’s request to compel Google to share its Knowledge Graph, a database that links people, places, and things to provide accurate search results. He also rejected the DOJ’s request for access to a wide range of data used for ad targeting, bidding and auction models. And while Google does have to share click-and-query data — the raw user data it collects after someone types something into a search bar and decides which results are helpful — the court said that it would cap the number of times the search giant had to disclose the information. Under the ruling, Google also doesn’t have to share key ranking signals in its search index, including those related to popularity, quality and authoritativeness. Instead of a periodic disclosure of search index data to competitors, Mehta simply ordered a one-time snapshot that must be provided to each qualified Google competitor. He rejected the request for data used to train Google’s generative AI models, finding that the AI market was highly competitive and “the evidence did not show…that Google’s GenAI product responses are superior to other GenAI offerings.”
September 3, 2025 at 9:46 PM
davey.bsky.social
Some expected Mehta to come down hard on Google, given his definitive finding of liability—that Google is a search monopolist. That original ruling, sources said, was surprising in its breadth and suggested a new approach to antitrust cases in the tech world. These remedies are a missed opportunity.
Bloomberg Law analyst Eleanor Tyler called the decision “terrible” in the judge’s refusal to actually attack the market imbalance. “We’re talking about a tech behemoth whose power is in the interlocking businesses,” she said. “He was clear about how bad things are, but then the ruling doesn’t do anything.” While Mehta ordered some data-sharing, “he brushed aside almost everything else the government asked for,” said Bill Kovacic, a former chairman of the Federal Trade Commission who now teaches antitrust at George Washington University Law School. “You can tell Mehta was worried about doing too much rather than too little. The race to prevail on AI overshadowed everything.”
September 3, 2025 at 9:42 PM
davey.bsky.social
Google's lobbyists are a major force in D.C., yet they're not at the top of the spending charts. A colleague has a great story explaining the workaround

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
A new analysis of federal lobbying data by the nonprofit Tech Transparency Project shows that Google and its parent company, Alphabet Inc. used an internal reorganization to exclude the value of lobbying by its senior executives from disclosures. The move helped keep Google off the top of the lobbying charts even as it maintained a robust network of advocates pushing its interests in the capital, during federal challenges to its dominance in search and advertising and the beginnings of artificial intelligence regulation. The findings, which were confirmed by a Bloomberg analysis of lobbying records, show that the effect of the accounting change was to lower the amount that Google reported spending to influence the federal government, likely by millions of dollars.
August 13, 2025 at 10:29 PM
davey.bsky.social
A little bit of news from me and @julialove.bsky.social: Google isn’t pushing through with its Quick View Recipe feature, which food bloggers had feared could erode their search traffic

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
Soon after news of the test program surfaced, creators made their concerns known, said Tomiko Harvey, a travel and food blogger at Passports and Grub, who attended a Google creator summit in May. “I’m actually feeling hopeful about this decision from Google,” Harvey wrote in an email. “Canceling the Quick View Recipe feature feels like a rare but welcome acknowledgment that creator feedback matters.” Although Google’s decision has some creators feeling relief, they likely haven’t seen the last of the search giant’s experimentation in a vibrant corner of the web. In recent years, many food bloggers have padded their recipes with lengthy preambles to ensure their content ranks well in Google Search, irritating readers in the process. As it crawls the web, Google will glean information about recipes’ core principles — say, the basic proportions of broth and meat in a recipe for chicken noodle soup — which it can then use to inform its own answers, Slater said. “Recipes are, by definition, facts, and facts are not copyrightable,” Slater said. For Google, “there’s always going to be a tension between giving the user exactly what they want,” he added, “and directing the user to another site.”
July 1, 2025 at 11:00 PM
davey.bsky.social
Stock is slowly ticking back up but still not looking great
May 20, 2025 at 5:58 PM
davey.bsky.social
the one and only @amandahess.bsky.social has written the most moving book about "having a child in the digital age"—but it's really about so much more. it's a meditation on the oppressiveness of tech, the fragility of humans, the miracle & bittersweetness of life... i would love for you to read it
April 25, 2025 at 6:56 PM
davey.bsky.social
New from me: Here's a fun lil earnings scoop 🚨

There was an $8 billion increase in profit in Alphabet's latest report that was just nagging and nagging at me. The accounting didn't make sense. Finally got to the bottom of it: the boost came from unrealized gains from a 2015 investment in SpaceX.
April 25, 2025 at 12:08 AM
davey.bsky.social
I remember when Twitter employees who criticized Musk on the platform and in meetings during the takeover period were fired, so... this tracks www.reuters.com/technology/a...
April 8, 2025 at 1:37 PM
davey.bsky.social
You can actually scroll to the right on this submenu, get to the “Web” tab, and just get the traditional list of links in results.

Now, do people do this consistently?… Will they take the time to?
April 7, 2025 at 10:34 PM
davey.bsky.social
In a recent interview with us, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai stressed that Google, through new efforts in search like AI Overviews, is focused on sending publishers “high-quality clicks.”

One publisher executive’s response: why does Google get to decide what a high-quality click is and what isn’t?
Google said the feature is an attempt to help users determine whether they are interested in a recipe before visiting a site. Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai stressed in a recent interview that Google is focused on sending publishers high-quality clicks, or readers who genuinely want to visit their sites. But Danielle Coffey, president of the News Media Alliance, questioned whether Google is in a position to know what’s useful to publishers. “Why are they unilaterally deciding what is a high-quality click and how we should engage our readers when we’re the ones creating the content?” she said.
April 7, 2025 at 10:18 PM
davey.bsky.social
Google said it's changing search in response to new ways people consume information. It also said it's “misleading to make generalizations" about declining traffic “based on individual examples."

But we also offer a broader analysis, via Similarweb. We saw the same patterns bloom.bg/43Jmzk3
Google denied that the rollout of AI Overviews had harmed websites’ traffic, saying it was “misleading to make generalizations about the causes” of declining traffic “based on individual examples.” A spokesperson added that traffic can fluctuate for a number of reasons, including seasonal demand, users’ interests and regular algorithmic updates to search. But the traffic drops have been widely felt across the web and have spanned topics — fashion and lifestyle, travel, DIY and home design, and cooking, according to Bloomberg’s interviews and data from web-analytics firm Similarweb, which analyzed traffic to a sampling of small- to mid-sized websites in each of these categories over the past two years. It’s possible that AI Overviews were a factor, said Similarweb, which carried out the research at Bloomberg’s request.
April 7, 2025 at 10:15 PM
davey.bsky.social
In order to survive, these businesses have had to adjust. E.g, the owner of a site that had reviewed training shoes is now opening a brick-and-mortar store.

Others are testing new distribution routes, including YouTube—but that ultimately might be just as volatile as Google search bloom.bg/43Jmzk3
Dave Bouskill and Debra Corbeil, a Toronto-based couple, launched travel blog The Planet D in 2008. For the first few years, the pair relied on TV appearances and newspaper features to find readers, but in 2015 they woke up to the potential of Google Search, which eventually drove 90% of their traffic. Their luck ran out in 2024, when Google launched AI Overviews. In the first few months after the product’s introduction, Planet D’s traffic fell by half, and the pair watched their fellow travel bloggers go out of business one by one. Bouskill and Corbeil at first thought they’d be able to survive with a smaller business, but their readership continued to crater, forcing them to lay off staff. Finally, when traffic fell by 90% of prior levels and revenue almost as much, they decided to stop updating their blog. It’s been painful for them to watch Google’s AI Overviews parrot travel tips they once offered — especially when the chatbot borrows their Canadian slang. “I do feel betrayed by Google,” Bouskill said, as Corbeil interjected: “Betrayed, that’s the word.” To rebuild their livelihood, the couple has pivoted their efforts to YouTube, another Google-owned property.
April 7, 2025 at 7:38 PM
davey.bsky.social
We've heard some upsetting stories from publishers. One person relies on a food bank. Another experienced depression; they had to pull their kids out of expensive school commitments. Several sites have gone out of business entirely.

A couple of these sites are ones Google's bragged about in ads
At the October 2024 web creator meeting, Hardaker told Google’s chief search scientist, Pandu Nayak, that most of the group had struggled with little to no web traffic for more than a year, according to detailed notes of the event that were reviewed by Bloomberg. Hardaker himself had made $250,000 in gross revenue in 2023. But by the time of the meeting, he said he was relying on a food bank. “I need to know as a business owner, and personally, if you think there’s a chance that some of our sites have the ability to recover,” he said at the event. Nayak apologized, according to attendees. Then he said it wouldn’t be reasonable for him to make any guarantees to the publishers, because he couldn’t predict what would happen. A Google spokesperson said the creators invited to this event aren’t representative of the whole web creator ecosystem. But a larger analysis conducted by Similarweb of 67 small publisher sites, which included at least a dozen sites each across four topics — fashion and lifestyle, travel, DIY and home design, and cooking — found declines in web traffic in every category. Travel, which Google has recently rolled out robust AI features for, saw the most pronounced declines, according to the data. Google disputed Similarweb’s findings, saying the web traffic of this larger sample still doesn’t capture search traffic overall.
April 7, 2025 at 7:31 PM