Matt Rivitz is a freelance copywriter and one of the co-founders of the left-of-center anonymous Twitter group “Sleeping Giants.” ¹ Sleeping Giants employs social media to push companies to blacklist right and right-of-center news/media organizations and television personalities. ²

Sleeping Giants

The Sleeping Giants campaign traces its inception to opposition to the 2016 Presidential campaign of Donald Trump. ³

Because Sleeping Giants operates in the shadows, the nature and number of the campaign’s leadership remains unknown;, however, the New York Times reported that Rivitz and Nandini Jammi,⁴ a freelance copywriter, marketer, and brand safety consultant, were involved. ⁵

The Sleeping Giants model targets the advertisement revenue of right and right-of-center media organizations, specifically income from programmatic advertising. ⁶  Programmatic advertising is a method through which a large company in the business of selling advertisements is paid to indiscriminately, as opposed to in a targeted manner, place advertisements on various websites. Sleeping Giants operates by listing the names of companies that have their adds placed on right and right-of-center news and media websites, and then tweets at those companies and urges them to “blacklist” those websites by asking the advertisement company to not place their adds on those websites.

Campaigns

Breitbart

In fall 2017, Rivitz directed his organizations efforts towards discrediting and “blacklisting” Breitbart News Network. Rivitz’s campaign began by contacting Social Finance (SoFi), urging them to “blacklist” Breitbart by requesting that they notify their advertiser not to place SoFi’s programmatic advertisements on the Breitbart website. ⁷

Rivitz’s organization, due to its anonymous nature was characterized by Alexandar Marlow, Breitbart’s editor-in-chief as “very dangerous” because the organization “[is] trying to impose corporate censorship and corporate segregation… and they’re doing it anonymously.” ⁸ While Sleeping Giants has no website, the organization keeps meticulous records on companies and organizations that it has pressured into “blacklisting” Breitbart. ⁹

Fox News

Rivitz has also utilized Sleeping Giants to quash conventional forms of media with which he disagrees. His organization has targeted many Fox News hosts and anchors, including Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, and Lauren Ingraham. ¹⁰

1. “Matt Rivitz” The 3% Movement. https://www.3percentmovement.com/speaker/matt-rivitz
2. Maheshwari, Sapna. Revealed: The People Behind an Anti-Breitbart Twitter Account, New York Times. July 20, 2018. Accessed February 6, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/20/business/media/sleeping-giants-breitbart-twitter.html
3. Maheshwari, Sapna. Revealed: The People Behind an Anti-Breitbart Twitter Account, New York Times. July 20, 2018. Accessed February 6, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/20/business/media/sleeping-giants-breitbart-twitter.html
4. Maheshwari, Sapna. Revealed: The People Behind an Anti-Breitbart Twitter Account, New York Times. July 20, 2018. Accessed February 6, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/20/business/media/sleeping-giants-breitbart-twitter.html
5. Maheshwari, Sapna. Revealed: The People Behind an Anti-Breitbart Twitter Account, New York Times. July 20, 2018. Accessed February 6, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/20/business/media/sleeping-giants-breitbart-twitter.html
6. “About” Nandini Jammi. https://nandinijammi.com/about/
7. Farhi, Paul. The mysterious group that’s picking Breitbart apart, one tweet at a time, The Washington Post. September 22, 2017. Accessed February 6, 2020. https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/the-mysterious-group-thats-picking-breitbart-apart-one-tweet-at-a-time/2017/09/22/df1ee0c0-9d5c-11e7-9083-fbfddf6804c2_story.html
8. Farhi, Paul. The mysterious group that’s picking Breitbart apart, one tweet at a time, The Washington Post. September 22, 2017. Accessed February 6, 2020. https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/the-mysterious-group-thats-picking-breitbart-apart-one-tweet-at-a-time/2017/09/22/df1ee0c0-9d5c-11e7-9083-fbfddf6804c2_story.html
9. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1i9o8CR_kjJ6mBd44k6CRZEhlXuZqq-XCCOoj-e8RJ7Q/edit#gid=0
10. Ng, David. Fox News backs Tucker Carlson as advertisers drop show following comments on mass immigration, The Los Angeles Times. December 18, 2018. Accessed February 6, 2020. https://www.latimes.com/business/hollywood/la-fi-ct-tucker-carlson-advertisers-20181218-story.html