Buzzfeed admits to deleting articles due to advertiser pressure

This month, Buzzfeed was accused of deleting—and then republishing—articles about Dove soap and the board game Monopoly due to pressure from advertisers. The company has since admitted that it has, in fact, deleted stories based on advertiser pressure, but not those two.

Buzzfeed has shared the results of an internal review, which shows that the site has taken down 1,112 posts for a variety of reasons, including errors, copyright issues and yes, advertiser complaints. But editor-in-chief Ben Smith says that only three stories have been taken down because of advertiser complaints.

One involved a critical article about Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, which was written by a staffer that had previously contributed to an ad campaign for the tech giant.

Another instance saw an article that criticized a Pepsi Super Bowl Twitter marketing campaign that Buzzfeed had been working on.