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Was it ever in? Or did the people who weaponized “brand safety” simply make it look like it was in? The idea never made sense to me. I don’t see why seeing an
by blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
Was it ever in? Or did the people who weaponized “brand safety” simply make it look like it was in?
The idea never made sense to me. I don’t see why seeing an ad next to some content would cause me to think differently about the contents of the ad. It’s a nonsensical connection to draw. Whenever advertisers got attacked for showing up on a YouTube video or conservative news site or whatever, it seemed to me like manufactured outrage.
What really happened, I think, is that a few big advertising agencies that control a big portion of ad purchasing got ideologically captured, as many companies did in the last 10 years, and the activist employees in those ad agencies used their position to implement their political ideas, which they felt was the right thing to do. An ecosystem of DEI oriented advertising industry people popularized phrases like “brand safety” that didn’t exist before the 2016 election, and used that as reason to attack, deplatform, demonetize, and effectively censor political speech in our society as a result. GARM was one such point of ideological capture (https://apnews.com/article/x-twitter-advertiser-lawsuit-garm-discontinues-e64b99a501d9f69abbeebc1c479688d7 https://apnews.com/article/x-twitter-advertiser-lawsuit-garm...) that enabled all this.
I hope we are done with that culture of censorship and deplatforming and can get back to holding reasonable debates and discussions even on controversial topics people disagree on.
- bediger4000 2y agoI always thought worse of brands when their ads showed up next to crap content. Given the insistence that the ads were tightly targeted, showing up next to terrible content always seemed like an indictment of the ads. Dealing with ad companies like LiveIntent didn't change that for me.
- andsoitis 2y ago> Given the insistence that the ads were tightly targeted why do you expect this targeting to be any better than recommendation systems on video and music streaming sites?
- bediger4000 2y agoI don't. That's one of the weird things about ads, as grandparent comment demonstrates. Adults in the USA are expected to act like ads have zero influence, act like ads are isolated, with no context. If I point out that ads are mostly lies, and even the meta commentary on ads (tight targeting) are lies, I often get your response. I'm not blaming you at all, I just find it all strange. Advertising clearly effects sales, and advertisers clearly influence ad supported media, we're just supposed to ignore those elephants in the room.
- Terr_ 2y ago> don’t see why seeing an ad next to some content would cause me to think differently about the contents of the ad. If that didn't happen, I imagine enough of the global $1 trillion-plus industry would have noticed by now, and already adjusted their strategies to exploit the under-valued placements.