Ad technology provider AppNexus bars Breitbart News from its ad-serving tools

AppNexus, a major advertising technology provider, has barred right-wing Breitbart News from using its ad-serving tools over violation of its hate speech rules by the conservative online publisher.

AppNexus scrutinised Breitbart's website after president-elect Donald Trump picked Steve Bannon, former executive chairman of Breitbart, to be White House chief strategist last week. The digital ad firm decided the publication had breached a policy against content that incited violence, according to AppNexus spokesman Joshua Zeitz.

"We did a human audit of Breitbart and determined there were enough articles and headlines that cross that line, using either coded or overt language," he said.

The move comes even as the two largest digital ad sellers, Alphabet's Google and Facebook, try to tackle the menace of fake news -- misleading or intentionally deceptive articles that appeared in social news feeds and online search results. Both companies said last week, that they would pull advertising support from sites that spread "misinformation."

The AppNexus case was different. Zeitz stressed that the publication was not being targeted for its editorial position or for spreading misinformation. "This blacklist was solely about hate speech violation," he said. However, other ad tech firms continue to support Breitbart.

Advertising companies like AppNexus sell digital ad campaigns to advertisers and then place the ads on sites that for part of the network. The company had struck deals with publishers including Foursquare, Groupon Inc and Nasdaq Inc.

According to Zeitz, the AppNexus move was apolitical and the domain could be reactivated once the content in question was addressed.

"We have no interest in turning off sites because of ideology. That's not what this is about. This is about specific content that violates the hate speech code," he said, Reuters reported.

Breitbart had used racial slurs and derogatory terms related to sexual orientation on its site that, according to AppNexus could incite violence against those groups.

Bloomberg News had first reported the ban.