3 ms·

Wouldn't it be nice if facebook took proper responsibility for what they publish in exchange for money. When snake-oil damages someone when it was advertised b

by harry8 6y ago

Wouldn't it be nice if facebook took proper responsibility for what they publish in exchange for money. When snake-oil damages someone when it was advertised by facebook, facebook, who took the money to diseminate the harm are liable for that. The other thing worth noting is that the hugely successful internet advertising campaigns, eg Tesla, who have a brand now comparable to Mercedes, paid facebook, google et al. precisely $0 to achieve that. Unless you are selling snake-oil, it would seem internet advertising is something to avoid. I think if everyone had to take direct responsibility for the advertising they publish, quality newspapers would be more profitable and facebook & google very, very much less dominant. Would it make the world a nicer, kinder place? Dunno. I say it's worth running the experiment.

voisin 6y ago
> The other thing worth noting is that the hugely successful internet advertising campaigns, eg Tesla, who have a brand now comparable to Mercedes, paid facebook, google et al. precisely $0 to achieve that. How?
- harry8 6y ago
  How Tesla, for example, did it is a separate question relevant to marketing in general and the analysis will be complex. Relevant here is that it is a fact that they did it paying facebook (& google etc.) absoutely nothing and have clearly been wildly, amazingly successful.
- user1234568 6y ago
  Do something newsworthy and facebook will advertise you for free. The goal is to get bloggers/news orgs to write something about your product. Then user's will share those articles for free
- xingyzt 6y ago
  They don't do ads per se, but do spend quite a lot in other forms of marketing -- Discounts & perks for referrals, high-quality press photos, events, livestreams, etc.
rubber_duck 6y ago
I think it's unrealistic to expect publishers to vet advertisements - all the "hur dur ads evil must ban" stuff aside - it would be nice if there was a good way to incentivise the publishers to do the right thing while being realistic about what they can do and that ads are here to stay - I'm not sure what. Technically it looks like a thing where an AI could do a 80% of the way there job - and with a human layer of sanity checks on top of it should be realistic - but still don't see a way to structure the incentives - this would cost a bunch of money and realistically do very little for FB (maybe prevent some bad PR from people getting scammed but TBH a lot of people won't even recognise they got scammed)
- harry8 6y ago
  It's perfectly realistic. You legally mandate it and they change their business practises. You think facebook and google would actually be unviable if they had to decide weather to publish an ad when they take the money? I doubt that strongly. Less profitable, sure. Less competitive in advertising with the newspaper, yep. Smaller players would be more competitive, absolutely. But even if they were unviable, someone else would work out how to set up a competing viable business with those constraints. Do you really doubt that? And perhaps if facebook can't be viable without advertising evil, destructive propaganda killing people who are mentally weakened by serious disease, they, you know, shouldn't be operating? Just a thought. Oh and "hur dur" yourself, man. Not productive to a rational and sensible discussion, yeah?
  - rubber_duck 6y ago
    Sensible discussion ? How are you even supposed to determine what is fraudulent advertising as a publisher ? Are you supposed to inspect every product or verify the existence of every event before accepting a campaign ? This would basically wipe out the option to run small/local campaigns because of the upfront costs. And how would this benefit small players ? Their campaigns are smaller so as a % the flat cost of verification is going to be a significant price hike. Are they in a better position to verify that the ads they are running are not fraudulent ? And how would they cover their risk exposure considering a few missed fraudulent ads could put them out of business entirely compared to a large market player ? It would have radical consequences to a huge industry and it sounds like a knee jerk reaction because you don't like ads.

by harry8 6y ago

voisin 6y ago

> The other thing worth noting is that the hugely successful internet advertising campaigns, eg Tesla, who have a brand now comparable to Mercedes, paid facebook, google et al. precisely $0 to achieve that. How?

harry8 6y ago
How Tesla, for example, did it is a separate question relevant to marketing in general and the analysis will be complex. Relevant here is that it is a fact that they did it paying facebook (& google etc.) absoutely nothing and have clearly been wildly, amazingly successful.
user1234568 6y ago
Do something newsworthy and facebook will advertise you for free. The goal is to get bloggers/news orgs to write something about your product. Then user's will share those articles for free
xingyzt 6y ago
They don't do ads per se, but do spend quite a lot in other forms of marketing -- Discounts & perks for referrals, high-quality press photos, events, livestreams, etc.

rubber_duck 6y ago

I think it's unrealistic to expect publishers to vet advertisements - all the "hur dur ads evil must ban" stuff aside - it would be nice if there was a good way to incentivise the publishers to do the right thing while being realistic about what they can do and that ads are here to stay - I'm not sure what. Technically it looks like a thing where an AI could do a 80% of the way there job - and with a human layer of sanity checks on top of it should be realistic - but still don't see a way to structure the incentives - this would cost a bunch of money and realistically do very little for FB (maybe prevent some bad PR from people getting scammed but TBH a lot of people won't even recognise they got scammed)

harry8 6y ago
It's perfectly realistic. You legally mandate it and they change their business practises. You think facebook and google would actually be unviable if they had to decide weather to publish an ad when they take the money? I doubt that strongly. Less profitable, sure. Less competitive in advertising with the newspaper, yep. Smaller players would be more competitive, absolutely. But even if they were unviable, someone else would work out how to set up a competing viable business with those constraints. Do you really doubt that? And perhaps if facebook can't be viable without advertising evil, destructive propaganda killing people who are mentally weakened by serious disease, they, you know, shouldn't be operating? Just a thought. Oh and "hur dur" yourself, man. Not productive to a rational and sensible discussion, yeah?
- rubber_duck 6y ago
  Sensible discussion ? How are you even supposed to determine what is fraudulent advertising as a publisher ? Are you supposed to inspect every product or verify the existence of every event before accepting a campaign ? This would basically wipe out the option to run small/local campaigns because of the upfront costs. And how would this benefit small players ? Their campaigns are smaller so as a % the flat cost of verification is going to be a significant price hike. Are they in a better position to verify that the ads they are running are not fraudulent ? And how would they cover their risk exposure considering a few missed fraudulent ads could put them out of business entirely compared to a large market player ? It would have radical consequences to a huge industry and it sounds like a knee jerk reaction because you don't like ads.