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The lawsuit argues that X technically did not "place" advertisements next to anti-Semitic and racist material, because the ads shown are driven by user data, an

The lawsuit argues that X technically did not "place" advertisements next to anti-Semitic and racist material, because the ads shown are driven by user data, and Media Matters chose to follow racist accounts alongside well-known brands.

deleted 3y ago
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aw1621107 3y ago
That seems like a rather... interesting... argument to make. It feels like it weakens the efforts to convince advertisers that their ads are safe from showing up next to objectionable content - it's not our fault your ads show up next to content you don't want them to show up next to, it's all the user's fault!
- pfannkuchen 3y ago
  Presumably the advertisers are concerned about being shown while someone is having a negative reaction to bad content, or about being associated with the bad content. If an individual user has specifically sought out the bad content though, they presumably don't themselves think it is bad, and so they don't have a negative reaction to it and also they don't have a negative view of an advertiser being associated with it. Is it still a problem for the advertiser? It's at least not a public perception problem anymore, more of an edge case of "do I want to encourage antisemites to shop at Target" kind of thing.
  - aw1621107 3y ago
    An interesting perspective. Not entirely sure that's the same line of reasoning advertisers use - they may be more risk-adverse and just go for a blanket "we don't want anything to do with <objectionable thing>" than "we don't want to show up next to <objectionable thing> unless the user likes it"
    - pfannkuchen 3y ago
      Yeah I don't think advertisers want their ads shown if the user likes the bad content. It is just way less severe than if it was happening for all users. Also harder for Twitter to notice and fix if organic occurrence is extremely rare.
  - freejazz 3y ago
    > Is it still a problem for the advertiser? Yes, because it's being shown in association with the bad content. That was in your first sentence. >It's at least not a public perception problem anymore, more of an edge case of "do I want to encourage antisemites to shop at Target" kind of thing. That's a different thing. Twitter isn't selling antisemite-targeted ads to Target... that's the whole point. Twitter likely agreed with Target to not show its ads in relation to negative content like that. If that negative content is all that you see when you go on twitter, and twitter is still serving you ads, then they are serving their advertisers content in association with this negative content.
swatcoder 3y ago
"If we didn't show ads with any toxic content, some of our users would never see ads at all! You can't expect us to operate a business like that!"
ncr100 3y ago
If that's accurate, then I don't see how they will win in court, with that wrong claim. TECHNICALLY "placement" is a term of art for adtech which (in my experience working near my adtech coworkers and their products) can only be "successful" vs competitor adtech offerings if it is placed with consideration to the user's data when placing. https://www.google.com/search?q=adtech+term+placement https://www.google.com/search?q=adtech+term+placement E.g. give the lady a dog advert if she previously expressed interest in dogs. It seems like X could be proving the defense's case with their own filing.
sgnelson 3y ago
is that a "The Algorithm is bad" excuse? Because if that's part of Elon Musk's position, this whole thing becomes even more laughable (considering his complaints about the algorithm were supposedly part of the reason he bought Twitter in the first place.)

deleted 3y ago

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aw1621107 3y ago

That seems like a rather... interesting... argument to make. It feels like it weakens the efforts to convince advertisers that their ads are safe from showing up next to objectionable content - it's not our fault your ads show up next to content you don't want them to show up next to, it's all the user's fault!

pfannkuchen 3y ago
Presumably the advertisers are concerned about being shown while someone is having a negative reaction to bad content, or about being associated with the bad content. If an individual user has specifically sought out the bad content though, they presumably don't themselves think it is bad, and so they don't have a negative reaction to it and also they don't have a negative view of an advertiser being associated with it. Is it still a problem for the advertiser? It's at least not a public perception problem anymore, more of an edge case of "do I want to encourage antisemites to shop at Target" kind of thing.
- aw1621107 3y ago
  An interesting perspective. Not entirely sure that's the same line of reasoning advertisers use - they may be more risk-adverse and just go for a blanket "we don't want anything to do with <objectionable thing>" than "we don't want to show up next to <objectionable thing> unless the user likes it"
  - pfannkuchen 3y ago
    Yeah I don't think advertisers want their ads shown if the user likes the bad content. It is just way less severe than if it was happening for all users. Also harder for Twitter to notice and fix if organic occurrence is extremely rare.
- freejazz 3y ago
  > Is it still a problem for the advertiser? Yes, because it's being shown in association with the bad content. That was in your first sentence. >It's at least not a public perception problem anymore, more of an edge case of "do I want to encourage antisemites to shop at Target" kind of thing. That's a different thing. Twitter isn't selling antisemite-targeted ads to Target... that's the whole point. Twitter likely agreed with Target to not show its ads in relation to negative content like that. If that negative content is all that you see when you go on twitter, and twitter is still serving you ads, then they are serving their advertisers content in association with this negative content.

swatcoder 3y ago

"If we didn't show ads with any toxic content, some of our users would never see ads at all! You can't expect us to operate a business like that!"

ncr100 3y ago

If that's accurate, then I don't see how they will win in court, with that wrong claim. TECHNICALLY "placement" is a term of art for adtech which (in my experience working near my adtech coworkers and their products) can only be "successful" vs competitor adtech offerings if it is placed with consideration to the user's data when placing. https://www.google.com/search?q=adtech+term+placement https://www.google.com/search?q=adtech+term+placement E.g. give the lady a dog advert if she previously expressed interest in dogs. It seems like X could be proving the defense's case with their own filing.

sgnelson 3y ago

is that a "The Algorithm is bad" excuse? Because if that's part of Elon Musk's position, this whole thing becomes even more laughable (considering his complaints about the algorithm were supposedly part of the reason he bought Twitter in the first place.)