Sexual ads on my G-rated sight – AGAIN!
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Dear WordPress,
A couple of months ago, I opened a thread complaining about sexually explicit ads on my G-rated blog which is read by minors. WordPress denied that the ads could be theirs – until I sent them a screen shot of the ad and they admitted it WAS theirs! They apologized and said it wouldn’t happen again when I suggested that they supply a free ad-blocker to me for a year as a result of the inconvenience. Instead, they said they would discontinue the inappropriate ads…In the past months, I have continued to receive complains from readers about similar, obviously WordPress hosted ads on my sight with images of Miley-Cyrus (nearly naked), Porn stars and other sexually-explicit materials. I’m very upset about this as I no longer can put any stock in WordPress’ promise to make it right the first time it happened. Recently while visiting friends, they pulled up my blog on their iPhones to show me horribly graphic ads that directly contradict the very purpose of my blog!
I believe it would be more than appropriate for your customer service to offer me free blockage for what you promised would not happen. Ads are one thing – which is why I have not upgraded yet. But sexual ads on a G-rated sight are absolutely unacceptable, and I am powerless to stop them without dishing out a great deal of money that I don’t have!!!
Please make this right asap!
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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Also – here is the original ad that was first spotted on my blog that WordPress promised to remove. The more recent ones have been MUCH worse! I do not have screen shots of them as I do not see them while logged in, but have witnessed them from the computers of my readers. /Users/hannah/Downloads/IMG_0003.PNG
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Would you please upload the screenshot via Media -> Add New in your blog’s Dashboard so I can take a look and bring this up to the advertisers?
Please note that if you would like to completely eliminate ads from appearing on your blog, we offer the No-Ads Upgrade: http://store.wordpress.com/premium-upgrades/ad-free/
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Here is the link to the original ad (already complained about it on July 14th – over 2 months ago): http://oneloveforchrist.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/img_0003.png
I’m really not interested in paying an upgrade fee to eliminate all ads. I’m interested in not having explicit material publicly displayed on a blog that is (1) religious and (2) read by minors. I believe it would be more than appropriate to do more than simply contact the advertiser as this has already been done and they continue to get worse and worse!!!
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Those particular units in your July screenshot are no longer running. Do you have a screenshot of the current ad you are reporting?
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Well, for starters, try these…. an ad that runs like a movie and is simply called ‘Fashion’ – the Miley Cyrus ad was running on a friend’s device and I don’t see it at the moment. Neither do I see the lingerie ad that was running yesterday morning at 5 o’ clock…I don’t have a screen shot of those two.
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Thanks, I don’t see anything about the Fashion ad that features sex, violence, or drugs. It just appears to be an ad about fashion, but I will pass your feedback along to the advertisers.
A lot of bloggers want to either pick the ads or only have contextually relevant ads. I’m afraid, however, that online advertising today doesn’t work that way. WordPress.com is a top 10 global site and for the most part we don’t get to pick ads, rather the advertisers pick us. We do have a process where we pick ad partners and we have screened out a number whose quality standards are not up to our standards and we can block ads explicitly featuring sex, violence, and drugs, but currently it’s not possible for us to give each blogger the ability to pick ads or to run only contextually relevant ads.
Please note that if you would like to completely eliminate ads from appearing on your blog, we offer the No-Ads Upgrade: http://store.wordpress.com/premium-upgrades/ad-free/
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I understand that the ad I sent you was not sexually explicit. I also understand that the ads on my reader’s screens WERE. Again, I do not want to pick and choose my ads, nor do I want to pay to remove them. I simply do not want naked women and ads for Miley Cyrus on my blog. If you don’t know who she is, try googling her! When I signed up for this blog, I was asked to rate the content. I would expect the ads to be appropriate for young people according to my rating. If I had chosen an R-rated blog, I would expect R-rated ads. I did not choose an R-rated blog though.
I’m very sorry that this does not seem to be at all customer satisfaction as WordPress’ goal. I’m sure this will continue to happen and I will be forced to pay if I don’t want to “scar” my young readers. I will also notify fellow bloggers that WordPress does not make things right after horrible ads that often go unnoticed by logged-in writers for months are complained about by their readers and they lose audience because of their graphic nature!
Thank you for your time. I suppose I did not expect anything more, but I am more frustrated than when I began.
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I know who Miley Cyrus is, and if you do see “naked women” ads, please send us the screenshots so we can report them and remove them.
We are more than happy to remove ads featuring nudity, sex, violence, and/or drugs. We don’t want them here either, they probably made it past our strict checks somehow.
But, in order to remove them and file a formal complaint, we need that screenshot of the ad. Otherwise, all we know is that someone somewhere saw nudity. We don’t know what ad it is, which ad to remove, if the ad even contained actual nudity in the first place, and which of our several advertisers to confront about it.
Please understand also that it is possible for browsers and browser extensions to be infected and display their own ads, often far more graphic than ours, it’s sadly quite common. Again, without that screenshot, we cannot distinguish between if your reader who reported it saw an ad which slipped past our strict checks or is actually infected and not even seeing our ads in the first place.
It’s not that we don’t want to help, we sincerely do, but we need the screenshot of the ad in question. Otherwise, we are simply unable to do anything about it.
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Please tell me that this does qualify as sexually explicit? Another complaint this very morning from a reader who is insisting I switch hosting because these are SO disturbing!!!!!!!!!!! Here’s the ad:
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Yeah, those aren’t good. I have contact the advertiser to remove the two on the left.
Thanks for the report!
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macmanx – your attention should definitely be drawn to this one also which is absolutely disgusting, vulgar and inappropriately sexual (top left photo with red circle).
and the ad links to this gross article: http://www.urbantabloid.com/the-most-unfortunate-photos-ever-taken/?id-7&utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=gravity
Unfortunately, it does seem that WordPress’ “strict checks” are letting an awful lot seep through! I’m screen shooting as I can, but of course, I don’t live online to protect my audience from what isn’t supposed to be there….I just assume that the ads they see and click on won’t be vulgar.
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We only prevent ads featuring sex, violence, or drugs.
For all others, we offer our No Ads upgrade http://store.wordpress.com/premium-upgrades/ad-free/ or plans http://store.wordpress.com/plans/
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So are you saying that this does not fall into the category of sexual?
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Please note, these people were having my problem back in 2011 – THREE years ago – with porno ads, and apparently, WordPress was going to fix it. But like the initiator of the thread wrote, “the future never comes.” Hence, all of us ARE being forced into buying Ad Block…
https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/unsuitable-adverts-on-my-blog?replies=63
Any way to escalate this problem to someone with higher deciding power than yourself? Otherwise, I may be posting screen shots of porno ads for the rest of my life…
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We do not run porn ads, ads featuring sex, ads featuring nudity, ads featuring violence, or ads featuring drugs.
The ad you are referring to contains neither of that.
The ads support the operation of your blog, covering the costs of hosting, hardware, bandwidth, personnel, etc. If you’d like to offset those costs without the ads, we offer the No Ads upgrade at only $30/year http://store.wordpress.com/premium-upgrades/ad-free/ or our plans which contain multiple features starting at $99/year http://store.wordpress.com/plans/
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