Democratization Has Its Price

The societal price is highestThe publishing discovery and sharing of content designed to induce criminality and hatredThe exposure to the public of criminal and hateful actsThe exposure to the public of information that is designed to distort or pervert the truthThe simple truth is that the same technology that allows the posting of a recipe the joyous video of a child or the exposure of an excessive act from law enforcement allows the creation posting or sharing of the video of a murder The simple truth is that the same technology that allows tweeting your love of a team allows the tweeting of hatred of religions races genders or elected officials on a continuum that runs from disagreement and ignorance to mendaciousness and incitement The uncomfortable truth is that one man39s freedom fighter is another man39s terroristCommercially the risks are different and somewhat trivial by comparisonThe damage to brand reputation from advertising being juxtaposed with the worst content assuming that consumers equate and implied endorsement after even the briefest consideration this seems unlikely in the extremeThe amplification of that issue through 39outing39 in press reportsWith inevitably greater reach than the original exposureDamning by association with a platform or publisher under attack for allowing the societal risk in the first placeSeveral British news outlets have reported in the last weeks on the appearance of advertising in proximity to content ranging from the distasteful to the despicable on YouTube Facebook Snapchat and other platforms This adds to earlier commentary in respect of bullying harassment and other equally unpleasant user behavior on Twitter This has included the naming shaming of multiple businesses brands charities and Government bodies In response some advertisers have removed themselves from the platforms in question some in public others more discretely Other advertisers have not The dilemma is easy to understand There is value in the platforms and their audiences almost all of the time yet in a tiny fraction of occasions something bad mightcould be inferred to be happening When the content is very bad however brand safety is a zerotolerance gameGoogle has been in the cross hairs of the media reports the principal villain of the piece the enablers of and profiteers Facebook are not far behind Advertisers and sometimes their agencies are the accessories to the crime Their money enables Google and Facebook directly and the perpetrators of the content indirectly Yet and yet in the grand scale of YouTube Facebook and advertising expenditure the numbers are tiny Tens of thousands in a world of billionsWhat comes of all this The bad guys get the oxygen of news coverage and Parliamentary hearings shaming the platforms for them this is reputationenhancing Advertisers are humbled some for pulling out others for staying in Google and others are publicly eviscerated yet with zero impact on their traffic or so far their stock priceThe only real good is that the power of the platforms will be balanced by increased pressure on them to be socially responsible and accountable Complex and inadequately deployed content detection user protection and brand safety tools will get simpler more effective and better distributed Some governments will 39incentivize39 the platforms with financial sanction if they fail to return the genie to the bottle Just maybe some media outlets with integrity of their own might turn the head of advertisers back to content origination businesses redressing the balance with massive distribution platformsLet39s hope for all of thisamp160 Thus far neither the issue nor its amplification has done credit to anyoneRob39s commentary was originally published in CampaignClick the social buttons above or below to share this story with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this article are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated bloggers

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Democratization Has Its Price

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Rob Norman

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Democratization Has Its Price

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