Tag: Misinformation

New York, USA – The United Nations (UN) has issued an urgent appeal to government, tech companies, advertisers and the PR industry to step up and take responsibility for the spread and monetisation of content that results in harm.

This plea was made by United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres following the launch of the United Nations Global Principles for Information Integrity.

This launch, done a year after the launch of his report into information integrity on digital platforms, has put forward a framework for coordinated international action to make information spaces safer and more humane, one of the most urgent tasks of our time.

These includes how misinformation, disinformation, hate speech and other risks to the information ecosystem are fueling conflict, threatening democracy and human rights, and undermining public health and climate action. 

Moreover, the UN notes that the proliferation is now being supercharged by the rapid rise of readily available artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, increasing the threat to groups often targeted in information spaces, including children.

“The United Nations Global Principles for Information Integrity aim to empower people to demand their rights. At a time when billions of people are exposed to false narratives, distortions and lies, these principles lay out a clear path forward, firmly rooted in human rights, including the rights to freedom of expression and opinion,” UN Secretary Guterres said.

UN notes that advertisers should demand transparency in digital advertising processes from the tech sector to help ensure that ad budgets do not inadvertently fund disinformation or hate or undermine human rights.

Moreover, tech companies should scope business models that do not rely on programmatic advertising and do not prioritise engagement above human rights, privacy, and safety, allowing users greater choice and control over their online experience and personal data.

Lastly, UN states that all stakeholders involved in the development of AI technologies should take urgent, immediate, inclusive and transparent measures to ensure that all AI applications are designed, deployed and used safely, securely, responsibly and ethically, and uphold human rights.

Singapore – Global media measurement and optimisation platform Integral Ad Science (IAS) has announced the expansion of its ‘Brand Safety and Suitability Measurement’ product to now include the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) category of misinformation across Facebook and Instagram Feeds and Reels. 

The GARM-aligned AI-driven solution will provide added confidence in campaigns run against brand-safe and suitable content. 

Facebook and Instagram bar ads from appearing alongside labelled misinformation or policy-violating content. However, advertisers seek greater control over the content themes their ads run alongside.

With IAS’ tools, advertisers can now assess if their ads are running alongside potentially unsuitable content as defined by the GARM framework. Now, they will be able to review when their ads run alongside content on the subject of misinformation.

IAS’s AI-driven Total Media Quality (TMQ) product includes ‘Brand Safety and Suitability Measurement’ technology that combines image, audio, and text signals with comprehensive frame-by-frame video analysis to classify content accurately in the feed at scale. TMQ provides further reassurance that advertisers’ campaigns are running adjacent to brand-suitable content.

Meta implements a robust approach to misinformation, prioritising the removal of content posing an immediate physical harm risk and collaborating with major third-party fact-checkers to label and reduce misinformation distribution. Ads are prevented from appearing alongside such content or any violating Meta policies. Instead, IAS measures if ads have appeared next to content that discusses or has to do with the GARM-aligned category of misinformation.

IAS classifies content according to the GARM Brand Safety and Suitability Framework and provides reporting to advertisers for them to tailor suitability settings on Meta. Content-level reporting provided by IAS allows advertisers to get a full, accurate picture of the subject matter and content their ads are running adjacent to and adjust their campaigns based on their own desired risk profiles.

Furthermore, IAS is also launching new features and functionality for advertisers across Facebook and Instagram, including expanded content-level transparency for IAS Signal, a simplified user experience, and enhanced reporting features. 

Lisa Utzschneider, CEO of IAS, said, “We’re excited to evolve our TMQ solution to include the GARM category of misinformation, which gives marketers more control over their brands’ reputations, especially ahead of this year’s U.S. elections. We are constantly innovating and building on our partnerships with the world’s largest platforms like Meta, providing added confidence for our customers while ensuring they are driving superior results through IAS’s data and technology.”

Singapore – Streaming and video hosting platform YouTube has announced the launch of its ‘Creators for Impact’ in the Asia-Pacific region, launching first in Singapore. Said initiative is aimed at sharing tips and learnings for local creators to tackle issues of misinformation and mental health on their channels while delivering a compelling message to their audience.

YouTube also hopes that through this programme, it will be helpful in the creator ecosystem by being a tool that can help define and shape public discussion on important issues prevalent in today’s society.

Over the next five months from July to November 2022, 14 creators have been shortlisted based on their channel’s credibility, social impact and potential. Participants can look forward to roundtable discussions with experts, key opinion leaders, and their fellow creators as they work towards using their platform to raise awareness on topics such as misinformation and mental health.

Some of the participating channels include Denise Soong Ee Lyn, TheSmartLocal, Our Grandfather Story, UNfiltered, and Sarah X. Miracle.

Speaking to MARKETECH APAC, Siddharth Srinivasan, head of YouTube content partnerships for Singapore, Malaysia and Philippines, said that they recognise the great contribution of local content creators, to which they have leveraged the open nature of the platform to educate, inspire and entertain viewers in creative ways, with their content gaining recognition both locally and globally.

“It’s important for us to ensure we are helping our creators to reach their audiences with the right content on such topics – in terms of connecting them with subject matter experts to share safe, credible content, and creating an environment where they are able to tap on the local creator community to pick up new tips on content creation like collaborating with a licensed expert to engaging audiences in a live Q&A,” Srinivasan said.

He also noted that YouTube has been active in creating partnerships to address mental health discussion on the platform, including with social media creative studio Bloomr.sg, and Ministry of Funny through Tribe Talkin’ to discuss topics such as personal experiences with issues such as anxiety and depression, mental pressures exerted by COVID-19-induced disruptions, and content addressing topics of violent extremism.

When asked about the state of the platform in terms of misinformation, he said that problematic content represents a fraction of one percent of the content on YouTube and they are constantly working to reduce this even further. He also noted that their work on reducing misinformation has been focused on four pillars: removing violative content, raising up authoritative content, reducing the spread of borderline content and rewarding trusted creators – the 4Rs of responsibility.

“When it comes to misinformation, speedy removals will always be important but we know they’re not nearly enough. Instead, it’s how we also treat all the content we’re leaving up on YouTube by raising up information from trusted sources and reducing the spread of videos with harmful misinformation,” he added.

Srinivasan also added that in Singapore, they have taken proactive steps to raise authoritative voices on the platform and ensure people get access to the right information. These include Top News and Breaking News shelves in Singapore to highlight videos from authoritative news sources.

“Since the beginning of this pandemic, we’ve focused on connecting people with useful, high-quality information and each other while removing violative content that violates our COVID-19 medical misinformation policy and Vaccine Misinformation policy. In Q1 2022, globally, we have removed more than 50,000 videos for violating the vaccine provisions of our COVID-19 misinformation policy. These provisions took effect in October 2020,” he concluded.

Pandemics, war, political dogfights and soaring inflation. You’re not imagining it – we’re being put through the wringer currently.

The recent instability we’ve experienced has only been exacerbated by the massive amounts of information being thrown at us every day. We’re being inundated – and when we’re trying to understand what our new future looks like, it’s important to have information we can rely on.

This is a major reason why news websites have seen surges in audience numbers lately. People need reliable and accurate information to understand the changing world around them.

There is no more room for misinformation. Not when we’ve all seen how dangerous it can be. Being able to trust the content we’re consuming is now one of the biggest differentiators in choosing which online platforms we frequent.

Trust has always been essential to advertisers, but it’s now more important, and difficult to achieve than ever. And with so many online media platforms competing for attention, it’s no wonder why customers are feeling a bit suspicious of the ads they’re seeing.

A recent global study by Outbrain and Savanta looked into the changing nature of trust, recommendations and advertising online. The research discovered that news sites are some of the most trusted online spaces, with 75% of respondents saying they trust the information they find there. That’s compared to just 54% who trust social media sites.

So while trust is harder to win, it can still be won with robust and accurate information. The more likely a website is to offer unreliable information, the more likely it will lose its audience. The said study found that 21% of people are planning to spend less time on social media in the next six months. Of that group, 36% are planning to spend that time visiting websites with editorial content.

This movement means it’s increasingly important that advertisers and marketers think more deeply about where brands appear online. Advertising needs to foster trust for both the page and the brand alike – it’s not just about ensuring the ad aligns with the general theme of the page anymore.

We can already see the effects of this shift in some major internet companies. Take Netflix and Facebook. Netflix had a widely publicised fall in subscribers for the first time in the first quarter of this year, and Facebook reported a drop in Daily Average Users in the last quarter of 2021.

These are both stalwarts of the digital space, and both are battling a content problem. Their trust exchanges are failing as their audiences no longer believe their attention (and in Netflix’s case – money) is being rewarded adequately. The situations aren’t unrelated.

In the new world, customers expect that in exchange for the attention they pay to your brand, they’ll be rewarded with helpful information they can actually use in their lives. Audiences cannot be taken for granted anymore. Any value your brand can provide needs to be established before they can expect to move customers through the purchase journey. 

So in the battle to win trust in the online arena, there are a few ways brands can ensure they’re targeting customers in the most effective and engaging way possible.

Native advertising is considered the least intrusive ad type, with only 20% of people considering it intrusive and 64% placing their trust in it. This is compared to 29% of respondents who say social feed ads are the most intrusive. People are either going online to escape or to find specific information – don’t disrupt that experience with a jarring ad.

Headlines and personalisation are also key ways to ensure you’re targeting customers in the most unobtrusive way. Most customers now prefer to see their recommendations personalised with headlines. Specifically, the research by Outbrain found that household decision-makers are significantly more likely to prefer personalised recommendations (59%) and headlines (58%) than non-decision makers.

These headlines need to be short, sharp and snappy – much like a news headline would be. They’re most effective for grabbing attention and pulling customers in to learn more about the topic.

Personalisation is also one of the best ways to achieve trust and provide a helpful experience online for younger age groups. These demographics resoundingly prefer an evolving experience unique to their preferences, with 53% of 18-24 year olds and 48% of 25-34 year olds choosing this option. To reach these groups, update your creative to highlight the products or services they’re interested in. Be smart about optimising your messaging to reflect where your customers are in their purchasing journey – if you get that wrong, you risk isolating them for good.

It may feel as if it’s all doom and gloom at the moment. But in a time of uncertainty, being trusted by your customer is invaluable – and can be the difference between your brand and your competitors.

This article is written by Ben Steel, general manager of Outbrain for SEA.

Singapore – Misinformation is a complicated and wide-ranging problem in society, which is why companies are taking steps to help brands avoid misinformation, ensuring journalistic integrity and reaffirming support for quality news sites.

With this, Integral Ad Science (IAS), the global digital ad verification company, has partnered with The Global Disinformation Index (GDI), the web-based tool that rates news outlets, making IAS the first ad verification company to help marketers avoid misinformation content.

GDI is a third party that sets the standard for what qualifies as disinformation and focuses on restoring trust in media sites around the world by providing real-time automated risk ratings. The GDI’s risk assessment is built off human-powered analyses, based on the international ‘Journalism Trust Initiative’ standard, alongside cutting-edge AI that catalogs millions of pages per week across hundreds of thousands of domains.

The partnership aims to protect brands from running ads on sites that have been identified for misinformation. IAS will be identifying potential sources of misinformation through its AI algorithm, and will be validated by GDI’s trusted and independent assessment of news content and risk. 

In addition, IAS will be adding domains that GDI detects organically to ensure the most complete coverage for advertisers. Through this, advertisers will be confident that their campaigns are running on quality news platforms.

Lisa Utzschneider, the CEO of Integral Ad Science, shared that their mission to be the benchmark for trust and transparency in digital media quality has never been more critical, and with the rise of brand risk globally, they are providing advanced tools for marketers to safeguard their brands.

“This partnership with GDI is a market first, building on our strong brand safety and suitability tools to offer expanded global coverage and to classify more sources of misinformation, which means greater protection for our clients,” said Utzschneider.

Meanwhile, Clare Melford, GDI’s co-founder and executive director, commented that the new partnership with IAS is a step forward for digital advertisers, and they are proud to be part of catalyzing change across the industry to stop the dissemination of disinformation online.

“Working with IAS, our combined strengths will change the way disinformation is detected and avoided, ultimately disrupting the incentives to create it,” said Melford.

New Delhi, India – As India continues to combat its second wave of COVID-19 infections, research publisher and information analytics company Elsevier has launched a new COVID-19 online healthcare information hub for India in order to relay the latest COVID-19 information for the greater benefit of Indian healthcare frontliners and the general public in the country to fight misinformation.

The Elsevier India COVID-19 Healthcare Hub features complimentary resources and online learning tools, as well as latest evidence-based information on the novel coronavirus, with materials on the prevention and management of COVID-19. These include approved treatments and guidelines, along with other useful tools to help doctors, nurses and healthcare workers provide patient care. 

In addition, this resource aims to meet the increasing need for standardized, credible and accurate information around the pandemic and allow healthcare professionals to provide consistent and safe patient care.

Kok Keng Lim, managing director for Asia Pacific at Elsevier believes that the publisher institution has a responsibility to provide high quality evidence-based information and tools on COVID-19 and the newly approved vaccines.

“By aligning these localized resources to global care standards, we aim to support frontline workers with credible data and patient discussion tools that can bolster their confidence to address concerns, dispel vaccine falsities and quickly make critical decisions for better patient outcomes,” Lim said.

He added, “The India COVID-19 Healthcare Hub also provides patients with a single source of accurate data to help curb the spread of misinformation on the disease.”

First introduced last year, the India COVID-19 Healthcare Hub is the local extension of the global information hub, which has received over 300,000 visits from physicians, nurses, clinicians, patients and researchers who are seeking the latest information and trustworthy resources on the pandemic.

In addition to the India COVID-19 Healthcare Hub, Elsevier is also supporting Swasth Foundation, a not-for-profit organization that promotes universal and affordable healthcare for the people of India. Together with the RELX Group, Elsevier’s parent company, the two organizations have contributed approximately 22 high-flow oxygen concentrators to support more than 12,000 critically ill patients in India.

Shankar Kaul, managing director for India at Elsevier, commented, “The COVID-19 pandemic has been a global health crisis for over a year and our teams across the United Kingdom and Latin America have conducted extensive research around the variants of coronavirus. These global insights are now available through the India COVID-19 Healthcare Hub, providing the public and healthcare professionals with access to the latest resources to manage the new strain of the virus.”

Users can also access the latest information from the Elsevier COVID-19 Healthcare Hub by connecting with them via messaging platform Whatsapp to receive automated updates.

On a separate note, Google India has launched the Google News Showcase in the country to create local curated news for the Indian readers, especially about COVID-19 updates, and similarly to combat misinformation about COVID-19.

Singapore – Criteo, a global ad-tech company, has announced the integration of marketing data services Oracle Data Cloud in their system to strengthen brand safety capabilities of marketer clients.

Through the new service integration, Criteo will use Oracle Data Cloud as a way for their clients to build up brand safety capabilities while maintaining brand scalability and performance. 

Citing a study from Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), over 77% of industry professionals stated brand safety as a key priority in 2020, gaining prominence over marketers in the mid of the rise of misinformation and sensitive news topics.

“With growing concerns over data and transparency, Criteo focuses on delivering the highest advertising experience for all partner advertisers and publishers. This integration with Oracle Data Cloud is an example of our incremental steps towards the best, most personalised and relevant ad experience possible. We’re pleased to partner with Oracle Data Cloud as we continue to meet industry and client standards when it comes to brand safety,” said Taranjeet Singh, managing director of Criteo SEA and India.

Chris Stark, senior director of product management at Oracle Data Cloud commented, “We’re pleased to work with Criteo to provide industry professionals the right technology solution to address ongoing and fast evolving brand safety concerns. Together, our goal is to give advertisers more control of their ad placements and shift the growing conversation surrounding brand safety to focus on long-term brand suitability.”

The newest service integration is already available across all Criteo clients with no additional cost.