On the phone, “Rachel” does not seem particularly distraught. This anonymous Sleeping Giants activist, the “Citizen collective in the fight against the financing of hate speech” learned from reading Current values that the magazine and the television channel CNews announced to file a complaint against the organization. “We can neither confirm nor deny anything since we have not received anything”, she explains from her garden.
The reactionary weekly of the Valmonde group and the conservative channel of the Canal + group confirm these complaints. “The time has come for a response”, even claims Current values in a message published online on June 9, determined to put an end to the actions of the collective born in the United States after Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election, and active in France since 2017.
Vigilance
By appealing to advertisers whose advertisements are broadcast on CNews or published on the magazine’s website, the Sleeping Giants often lead them to withdraw them; in doing so, they deprive these media of the resources that support them. “We are only alerting those brands which, by buying programmatic advertising, most often ignore where their ads are showing, recalls Rachel. We never call them twice. If they don’t react, or choose to stay, we don’t go any further. “
Among the media chosen by the collective to exercise its vigilance are Paris Première which, like CNews, grants the editorial writer of the Figaro the favors of its antenna within the weekly show “Zemmour & Naulleau”, but also the site became a conspirator France Evening. The far-right site Boulevard Voltaire, convicted of inciting hatred against Muslims in 2014 and the Breton nationalist site Breiz Atao, whose founder Boris Le Lay has been convicted several times for inciting racial hatred, have also been in the crosshairs in the past. Sleeping Giants.
“These gagging trials are first and foremost made to intimidate us” Rachel, activist for Sleeping Giants
The complaint from Valmonde et Cie, the company to which Current values belongs, was filed on June 4, and aims to denounce “Acts of discrimination, because of political opinions, and likely to hinder the normal exercise of an economic activity”. “They make us lose a lot of money”, recognizes Tugdual Denis, deputy editor-in-chief. At the beginning of the year, the online advertising company Taboola, which supplied the weekly’s site with various advertisements, indeed broke its contract with the magazine, following the publication of the cartoon series giving to see the deputy Danièle Obono represented as a slave.
Current values in vain to appeal to justice to denounce this decision depriving him of an income of “Three million euros over three years”, she ruled in favor of Taboola’s appeal, and Values turned to another agency, MKD Production, “At the RPM (income per thousand views) less good”, regrets Mr. Denis. In its printed form, Current values receives very few advertisements, “Advertisers do not rush”. The magazine, whose paid distribution in France amounted to 108,239 copies in 2020 (according to data from the market certifying body, the ACPM) received a profit of just over one million dollars. euros in 2020.
According to Current values, CNews could, for its part, file three complaints: two for defamation, and one for discrimination and interference with freedom of expression. The news channel confirms the existence of only one complaint, after it too has lost many advertisers following the Sleeping Giants alerts. The 2020-2021 season will indeed have been sparse in advertising spots accompanying “Face à l’Info”, the program in which Mr. Zemmour officiates, says Rachel. Sometimes the channel did not broadcast any, sometimes a few spots “Small advertisers who pay very little for screens but serve as cannon fodder”. CNews complaints and Current values are they likely to succeed? “These gagging trials are first made to intimidate us”, comments the activist. But to reach the volunteers of the collective, she emphasizes, “We would first have to be identified”.