Check My Ads: Grocery store Lidl stops advertising on TV channel found spreading Russian propaganda

Lidl is no longer advertising on a Serbian TV channel found spreading Russian propaganda — though the grocery chain says it’s not a political decision.

The European company’s ad halt comes as researchers and nonprofits, including Check My Ads and Balkan Free Media Initiative, have been sounding the alarm about advertisers unknowingly funding the spread of propaganda.

Happy TV is one of the “primary sources of disinformation in Serbia,” a 2023 report from BFMI and Serbia’s Center for Research, Transparency and Accountability found. Russian disinformation is prevalent on the channel, it said, including “claims that ‘Russia was forced’ into conducting a ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine.”