Disinformation

This is what we're up against

Bad actors spreading disinformation online to fuel intolerance.

Teams of lawyers from the rich and powerful trying to stop us publishing stories they don’t want you to see.

Lobby groups with opaque funding who are determined to undermine facts about the climate emergency and other established science.

Authoritarian stat... See more

Dive Brief:

• Ads that appear near negative content cause a 2.8 times decrease in consumer intent to associate with the brands, according to “The Brand Safety Effect,” a new media trial study by brand safety company CHEQ, IPG Mediabrands, BMW, Magna and a leading online entertainment platform.


• Two-thirds of consumers who expressed a high purchase inte

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Disinformation aims to confuse, paralyse and polarise society at large for political, military, or commercial purposes through orchestrated campaigns to strategically spread deceptive or manipulative media content. On social media, disinformation tools include bots, deep fakes, fake news and conspiracy theories.

A study released Sunday by The Global Disinformation Index, a UK nonprofit that rates sites’ trustworthiness, found that 70% of roughly 1,700 disinformation sites it analyzed were getting so-called “programmatic ads” — ads placed automatically — from Google, putting brand names such as Audi and Sprint next to junk content.

The involvement of big names, like BMW and IPG Mediabrands, in the study signals that the marketing industry is taking steps to create a safer, more transparent ad ecosystem. Trade association 4A’s unveiled the Advertiser Protection Bureau, where agencies collectively share the responsibility of creating a community to protect the health of all bra... See more

Dive Brief:

• 4A’s unveiled the Advertiser Protection Bureau (APB), where agencies will collectively share the responsibility of creating a community that protects the health of all brands while keeping consumers safe, too, according to a press release. The announcement was made at the 4A’s closed Accelerate conference last month but only now release

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Democratic governance of digital platforms

Most brands do not want to be associated with hate speech and bot farms, but they are. It is easy to look the other way in such a technically complicated market, but marketers have a responsibility. Brands become complicit by remaining silent.

Policymakers and activists are pushing to reform digital platfor... See more