Red Ventures pressured writers to appease advertisers, workers allege
Marketing firm Red Ventures pressured writers at CNET and other websites to go easy on advertisers, former workers now allege.
CNET is a consumer-oriented technology publication owned by marketing firm Red Ventures. The publication’s flagship product is a website that was launched in the mid-1990s. It was acquired by CBS Interactive in 2008 and sold off by what is now Paramount Global to Red Ventures for $500 million in 2020.
Marketing firm Red Ventures pressured writers at CNET and other websites to go easy on advertisers, former workers now allege.
CNET’s editor-in-chief is unapologetic about the company’s use of a robot that wrote content filled with errors and plagiarized sentences.
A robot used by marketing firm Red Ventures for various publications committed acts of plagiarism that went largely unchecked for months.
CNET will stop publishing articles written entirely by robots after receiving a copious amount of negative attention over the practice during the last few weeks.
CNET parent Red Ventures used artificial intelligence and fake bylines in content that was designed to game Google and reap affiliate revenue for more than a year.
Articles that were written by artificial intelligence bots had several errors in them before they were published on CNET’s website.
An agreement between marketing firm Red Ventures and media giant ViacomCBS called for significant job cuts as part of a multi-million dollar acquisition of CNET Media Group.
ViacomCBS is issuing pink slips to workers of companies that will be sold to Red Ventures in the coming months.
Marketing firm Red Ventures has reached an agreement with ViacomCBS to acquire technology news website CNET for $500 million.