YouTube Click Count Floors Creators
April 18, 2025
Content creators are not thrilled about a change in how YouTube counts views for short-form videos. The Google-owned site now tallies a view any time the short starts, regardless of how long it plays before the user scrolls on past. Digiday reports, “YouTube Shorts View Count Update Wins Over Brands—But Creators Aren’t Sold.” Though view counts have spiked since the change, that number has nothing to do with creators’ compensation. Any bragging rights from high view counts will surely be negated as word spreads on how their calculation changed. Besides, say seasoned creators, there could be a real downside for newbies. Reporter Ivy Liu writes:
Other creators said that they were worried the change could encourage YouTubers to focus on the inflated view metric displayed beneath Shorts, rather than the engaged view metric that contributes more meaningfully to creators’ income. For example, the creator BnG Refining — who goes by the name ‘Scrooge’ to his audience and asked not to be quoted by his real name — said that he was afraid less experienced creators might ‘flood the platform with content that they think is wanted, and not until hours, days, weeks later realizing that those were only fake views.’”
We are sure Google does not mind, though. Creators were not the real audience for the change. We learn:
“Brands and marketers are far more welcoming of the update, saying it brings order to the chaos of influencer marketing. Now, YouTube Shorts, TikTok videos and Instagram Reels all measure their views in the same way, making it easier for marketers to compare creators’ and videos’ performance across platforms. ‘It makes it easier, if you’re a brand, to say, “here’s how performance is across the board,” vs. looking at impressions and then trying to judge an impression as a view,’ said Krishna Subramanian, CEO of the influencer marketing company Captiv8.”
Of course. Because it is all about making it easier for brands to calculate their ROI. Creators’ perspectives, information, and artistic expression are secondary. As usual, creators are at the mercy of Google. Google likes everyone to be at its mercy. No meaningful regulation is the best regulation. Self regulation works wonders in the financial services sector too.
Cynthia Murrell, April 18, 2025
Ad Blockers and a Googley Consequence
April 11, 2025
Another dinobaby blog post. Eight decades and still thrilled when I point out foibles.
Motivated individuals are acting in a manner usually associated with Cloudflare-type of outfits. The idea of a “man in the middle” is a good one. It works when one buys something from Amazon. The user wants convenience and does not take the time to hunt around for a better or cheaper version of a particular product.
“Block YouTube Ads on AppleTV by Decrypting and Stripping Ads from Profobuf” provides a recipe for dumping advertisements in some streaming services, but the spotlight is on the lovable Google and Apple’s streaming device. (Poor Apple. Like its misfiring AI and definitely interesting glasses, the company caught a bright person’s attention.)
Social media needs two things: Beacons that phone home and advertising because how else is a company going to push products and services. The write up provides step-by-step instructions for chopping out ads from two big outfits.
Here’s what I think will happen at the monopolies:
- At least two software people will tackle this “problem”: One from Apple and one from Google.
- One will come up with a “fix” to the work-around
- The “fix” will be shared with the company who did not come up with an enhancement first
- The modified method will be deployed
- The game begins again.
The cat-and-mouse sequence is little more than that von Neumann game theory just in real life with money at stake. It’s too bad Johnny and his pals (some of whom were quite quirky) are not around to work on ad blocking instead of nuclear weapons.
Well, Johnny isn’t around, and I think that game theory does not work when one battles multi billion dollar monopolies with lots of reasonably bright people around providing they aren’t veterans of the Apple AI team or the original Google Glass product.
The write up is interesting. I admire the effort the author put into the blocking. How long will it persist? Good question, but the next iteration will probably be designed to preserve the money flow. Ads and user tracking are the means to the end: Big revenue.
Stephen E Arnold, April 11, 2025
YouTube: The Future Has Blown Its Horn
April 3, 2025
YouTube has come a long way in the last two decades. Google wants us to appreciate just how far, apparently. Digiday celebrates the occasion with the piece, "As YouTube Turns 20, Here Are the Numbers You Need to Know." Writer Krystal Scanlon shares several noteworthy statistics. For example, the company states, an average of 500 hours of video is uploaded to the platform every minute. On the other end of the equation, about 30,000 viewers visit the site each day, Neilsen reported in February 2024.
In fact, we learn, YouTube considers itself the "new television." That same Neilsen report shows the platform outperforming other major streaming services. (Though it only beat Netflix by a nose, at 9.2% of total TV usage to its 8.2%.) The platform happily monetizes those eyeballs the old-fashioned way, with ads. However, it has also enticed over 125 million users to at least try its subscription plans. As for content creators, about 500,000 of them have been at it for over 10 years. They must be getting enough out of it to stick around. But for how many that is a viable career and how many it is just a hobby the write-up does not say. Whatever the case, it is clear YouTube has creators to thank for its significant ad revenue. Scanlon writes:
"With Europe’s creator economy projected to reach $41.17 billion by 2030 and U.S. influencer marketing expected to grow 14.2% to $9.29 billion this year, according to eMarketer, it’s clear why YouTube is focused on staying ahead in the creator space. Part of that plan involves doubling down on YouTube’s ability to thrust creators into the cultural mainstream. Which is why the platform has said that creators are becoming the startups of Hollywood. Whether it’s scripting, editing behind the scenes or creators are hiring various staff as part of their new business — YouTube wants to be the launchpad."
Yes, that would be quite the get. It will have to fight certain other streaming services for that honor, we think. The post continues:
"YouTube contributed more than $45 billion to the U.S. GDP in 2023, according to Oxford Economics, and it created more than 430,000 full-time jobs. Similarly, in Europe, YouTube contributed €6.4 billion ($6.94 billion) to the EU’s GDP in 2023, according to the platform’s latest Impact report, not including the jobs created by the 100,000 creators in the region that have built their own businesses including hiring staff."
Here’s the kicker. As changes roil the Google search advertising approach, YouTube might be the Little Engine That Could for Googzilla. Next up? Google Advertising, Broadcast, and Cable. ABC?
Cynthia Murrell, April 3 2025
Click Counting: It Is 1992 All Over Again
March 31, 2025
Dinobaby says, “No smart software involved. That’s for “real” journalists and pundits.
I love it when search engine optimization experts, online marketing executives, and drum beaters for online advertising talk about clicks, clickstreams, and click metrics. Ho ho ho.
I think I was involved in creating a Web site called Point (The Top 5% of the Internet). The idea was simple: Curate and present a directory of the most popular sites on the Internet. It was a long shot because the team did not want to do drugs, sex, and a number of other illegal Web site profiles for the directory. The idea was that in 1992 or so, no one had a Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval-type of directory. There was Yahoo, but if one poked around, some interesting Web sites would display in their low resolution, terrible bandwidth glory.
To my surprise, the idea worked and the team wisely exited the business when someone a lot smarter than the team showed up with a check. I remember fielding questions about “traffic”. There was the traffic we used to figure out what sites were popular. Then there was traffic we counted when visitors to Point hit the home page and read profiles of sites with our Good Housekeeping-type of seal.
I want to share that from those early days of the Internet the counting of clicks was pretty sketchy. Scripts could rack up clicks in a slow heartbeat. Site operators just lied or cooked up reports that served up a reality in terms of tasty little clicks.
Why are clicks bogus? I am not prepared to explain the dark arts of traffic boosting which today is greatly aided by scripts instantly generated by smart software. Instead I want to highlight this story in TechCrunch: “YouTube Is Changing How YouTube Shorts Views Are Counted.” The article does a good job of explaining how one monopoly is responding to its soaring costs and the slow and steady erosion of its search Nile River of money.
The write up says:
YouTube is changing how it counts views on YouTube Shorts to give creators a deeper understanding of how their short-form content is performing
I don’t know much about YouTube. But I recall watching little YouTubettes which bear a remarkable resemblance to TikTok weaponized data bursts just start playing. Baffled, I would watch a couple of seconds, check that my “autoplay” was set to off, and then kill the browser page. YouTubettes are not for me.
Most reasonable people would want to know several things about their or any YouTubette; for example:
- How many times did a YouTubette begin to play and then was terminated in less that five seconds
- How many times a YouTubette was viewed from start to bitter end
- How many times a YouTubette was replayed in its entirety by a single user
- What device was used
- How many YouTubettes were “shared”
- The percentage of these data points compared against the total clicks of a short nature or the full view?
You get the idea. Google has these data, and the wonderfully wise but stressed firm is now counting “short views” as what I describe as the reality: Knowing exactly how many times a YouTubette was played start to finish.
According to the write up:
With this update, YouTube Shorts will now align its metrics with those of TikTok and Instagram Reels, both of which track the number of times your video starts or replays. YouTube notes that creators will now be able to better understand how their short-form videos are performing across multiple platforms. Creators who are still interested in the original Shorts metric can view it by navigating to “Advanced Mode” within YouTube Analytics. The metric, now called “engaged views,” will continue to allow creators to see how many viewers choose to continue watching their Shorts. YouTube notes that the change won’t impact creators’ earnings or how they become eligible for the YouTube Partner Program, as both of these factors will continue to be based on engaged views rather than the updated metric.
Okay, responding to the competition from one other monopolistic enterprise. I get it. Okay, Google will allegedly provided something for a creator of a YouTubette to view for insight. And the change won’t impact what Googzilla pays a creator. Do creators really know how Google calculates payments? Google knows. With the majority of the billions of YouTube videos (short and long) getting a couple of clicks, the “popularity” scheme boils down to what we did in 1992. We used whatever data was available, did a few push ups, and pumped out a report.
Could Google follow the same road map? Of course not. In 1992, we had no idea what we were doing. But this is 2025 and Google knows exactly what it is doing.
Advertisers will see click data that do not reflect what creators want to see and what viewers of YouTubettes and probably other YouTube content really want to know: How many people watched the video from start to finish?
Google wants to sell ads at perhaps the most difficult point in its 20 year plus history. That autoplay inflates clicks. “Hey, the video played. We count it,” can you conceptualize the statement? I can.
Let’s not call this new method “weaponization.” That’s too strong. Let’s describe this as “shaping” or “inflating” clicks.
Remember. I am a dinobaby and usually wrong. No high technology company would disadvantage a creator or an advertiser. Therefore, this change is no big deal. Will it help Google deal with its current challenges? You can now ask Google AI questions answered by its most sophisticated smart software for free.
Is that an indication that something is not good enough to cause people to pay money? Of course not. Google says “engaged views” are still important. Absolutely. Google is just being helpful.
Stephen E Arnold, March 31, 2025
Digital Marketing: Is It Worse Than Social Media? Yep, in Some Ways
March 26, 2025
Yep, another dinobaby original.
With the US taking an interesting trajectory, I have seen an uptick in articles that tackle the question, “Why are many of society’s functions leaking synthetic oil?”
“How Digital Marketing Broke Society” takes a different analytic path. The culprit is not social media. (Please, visualize the tattoos on 11 year olds in TikTok- and Facebook-type content.) The bad actor is “digital marketing.” I must admit that I interpreted “digital marketing” with Google, but, please, don’t take my mental shortcut. You are more informed and neutral than I.
A young Silicon Valley type professional surfing to a digital advertising company on a flood of zeros and ones. He is making six figures and in his mom’s mind, her son is doing good things. He is such a good young man. She then turns her attention to his agentic note: “Love ya, mom.”
Let’s look at what Joan Westenberg (a person about whom I have zero knowledge) asserts.
I noted this passage:
We are, increasingly, a cross-generational society of extremely online, screen-tapping, doom scrolling depressives. And it’s having an impact. More than ever, we are divided by misinformation and disinformation, driven by and vulnerable to ignorance, hate-mongering, and bullshit, reactive more than proactive, caught in what is either a global backslide or a cycle of decay. We’re lonely, scared, and more likely than ever to take it out on total strangers. We read less. We watch more, and what we watch is short-form, viral videos designed to tap into the dopamine-fueled, base parts of our brains.
I think her point comes across, and it resonates with me. Every time I go to the gym I see people in need of serious calorie burning sitting on a machine or a bench fiddling with their mobile phones. I hit the gym at 6 am, and I am astounded that so many people have urgent messages to which they must respond. Hey, do some exercises. But these folks are gym potatoes engaged in doom scrolling I have concluded.
Ms. Westenberg adds:
An entirely new system of influence came into being, operating largely beneath conscious awareness. Dark patterns increased, making it harder for users to protect their privacy or limit their exposure. Intermittent variable rewards—the psychological mechanism that powers slot machines—became standard practice. The industry successfully reframed this surveillance and manipulation as “personalization” and “enhanced user experience”—linguistic legerdemain that positioned exploitation as a service.
I think this is accurate. (Remember, please, that I am interpreting this as Googley behavior. The company can pay for streaming video mostly for free because it seems to have the knack for using advertising to get more advertising and offering tools to facilitate most of the steps in the money extraction process. You, gentle reader, must be more open minded than I am.)
Another point in Ms. Westenberg’s essay caught my attention; to wit:
Meta’s internal research found that divisive content generates significantly higher engagement, translating directly to advertising revenue. YouTube’s recommendation algorithm precisely drives users toward increasingly extreme content because it maximizes watch time and ad impressions. Marketing technology companies have built their entire business models around the commodification of attention – regardless of its social consequences. Digital marketing is capitalism at its most predatory—a system where deliberately amplifying society’s worst impulses becomes a rational business strategy. The industry has created a machine that converts social discord into shareholder value. In an attention economy, hatred isn’t just profitable; it’s the optimal product. The economic model and the foundational worldview of digital marketing operate on the premise that human consciousness exists primarily as a resource to be mined, refined, and sold. It’s a form of cognitive colonization—claiming and exploiting mental territory that once belonged to human beings. You can read it in the language of the industry: users are “captured,” attention is “harvested,” and engagement is “extracted.”
Yes, data mining works. Predictive analytics work for precisely the insight behind Eugene Wigner’s 1960 essay “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences.” Digital marketing just applies this idea, and, in my opinion, it is indeed highly effective in 21st century human-centric predictive work.
I want to quote the passage that makes me quite happy with Ms. Westenberg’s essay, and if I may do a bit of predictive assertion, makes me feel warm and fuzzy about her mental orientation; specifically, she writes and I quote:
I spent fifteen years in digital marketing. Building campaigns, funnels, and content. But over the last month, I shut down my marketing business. The decision was both ethical and existential. I can’t continue participating in an industry that has evolved from persuasion – harmful enough – to psychological exploitation and the deliberate destruction of our social order. Every optimization, targeting refinement, and engagement metric has brought us closer to a world where human autonomy is systematically undermined for commercial gain. The techniques I learned and taught others—the psychological triggers, the attention-capturing mechanisms, the behavioral prediction models—have escaped their commercial confines to taint our information ecosystem and devour the foundations of political discourse. Digital marketing is a fundamental threat to human flourishing, cognitive autonomy, and democratic governance. The industry has normalized a state of perpetual surveillance and manipulation that would have been unthinkable just decades ago. Its methodologies have created a world where attention is constantly hijacked, emotions are continuously manipulated, and reality itself is customized in pursuit of extraction value.
I am not sure that the flow of digital or weaponized information will stop. I suppose at some point a power outage or some other exogenous event will knock online out, but for the foreseeable future, we have to surf on the torrents flooding the information highway.
Net net: I suppose I should recast my thinking and consider the perpetrators at those who are simply following the Google Legacy.
Stephen E Arnold, March 26, 2025
Google: Making a Buck Is the Name of the Game
December 30, 2024
This blog post was crafted by a still-living dinobaby.
This is a screenshot of YouTube with an interesting advertisement. Take a look:
Here’s a larger version of the ad:
Now here’s the landing page for the teaser which looks like a link to a video:
The site advertising on YouTube.com is Badgeandwallet.com. The company offers a number of law enforcement related products. Here’s a sample of the badges available to a person exploring the site:
How many law enforcement officers are purchasing badges from an ad on YouTube? At some US government facilities, shops will provide hats and jackets with agency identification on them. However, to make a purchase, a visitor to the store must present current credentials.
YouTube.com and its parent are under scrutiny for a number of the firm’s business tactics. I reacted negatively to the inclusion of this advertisement in search results related to real estate in Beverly Hills, California.
Is Google the brilliant smart software company it says it is, or is the company just looking to make a buck with ads likely to be viewed by individuals who have little or nothing to do with law enforcement or government agencies?
I hope that 2025 will allow Google to demonstrate that it wants to be viewed as a company operating with a functioning moral compass. My hunch is that I will be disappointed as I have been with quantum supremacy and Googley AI.
Stephen E Arnold, December 30, 2025
Meta, Politics, and Money
October 24, 2024
Meta and its flagship product, Facebook, makes money from advertising. Targeted advertising using Meta’s personalization algorithm is profitable and political views seem to turn the money spigot. Remember the January 6 Riots or how Russia allegedly influenced the 2016 presidential election? Some of the reasons those happened was due to targeted advertising through social media like Facebook.
Gizmodo reviews how much Meta generates from political advertising in: “How Meta Brings In Millions Off Political Violence.” The Markup and CalMatters tracked how much money Meta made from Trump’s July assassination attempt via merchandise advertising. The total runs between $593,000 -$813,000. The number may understate the actual money:
“If you count all of the political ads mentioning Israel since the attack through the last week of September, organizations and individuals paid Meta between $14.8 and $22.1 million dollars for ads seen between 1.5 billion and 1.7 billion times on Meta’s platforms. Meta made much less for ads mentioning Israel during the same period the year before: between $2.4 and $4 million dollars for ads that were seen between 373 million and 445 million times. At the high end of Meta’s estimates, this was a 450 percent increase in Israel-related ad dollars for the company. (In our analysis, we converted foreign currency purchases to current U.S. dollars.)”
The organizations that funded those ads were supporters of Palestine or Israel. Meta doesn’t care who pays for ads. Tracy Clayton is a Meta spokesperson and she said that ads go through a review process to determine if they adhere to community standards. She also that advertisers don’t run their ads during times of strife, because they don’t want their goods and services associates with violence.
That’s not what the evidence shows. The Markup and CalMatters researched the ads’ subject matter after the July assassination attempt. While they didn’t violate Meta’s guidelines, they did relate to the event. There were ads for gun holsters and merchandise about the shooting. It was a business opportunity and people ran with it with Meta holding the finish line ribbon.
Meta really has an interesting ethical framework.
Whitney Grace, October 24, 2024
What Can Cyber Criminals Learn from Automated Ad Systems?
October 10, 2024
The only smart software involved in producing this short FOGINT post was Microsoft Copilot’s estimable art generation tool. Why? It is offered at no cost.
My personal opinion is that most online advertising is darned close to suspicious or outright legal behavior. “New,” “improved,” “Revolutionary” — Sure, I believe every online advertisement. But consider this: For hundreds of years those in the advertising business urged a bit of elasticity with reality. Sure, Duz does it. As a dinobaby, I assert that most people in advertising and marketing assume that reality and a product occupy different parts of a data space. Consequently most people — not just marketers, advertising executives, copywriters, and prompt engineers. I mean everyone.
An ad sales professional explains the benefits of Facebook, Google, and TikTok-type of sales. Instead of razor blades just sell ransomware as stolen credit cards. Thanks, MSFT Copilot. How are those security remediation projects with anti-malware vendors coming? Oh, sorry to hear that.
With a common mindset, I think it is helpful to consider the main points of “TikTok Joins the AI-Driven Advertising Pack to Compete with Meta for Ad Dollars.” The article makes clear that Google and Meta have automated the world of Madison Avenue. Not only is work mechanical, that work is informed by smart software. The implications for those who work the old fashioned way over long lunches and golf outings are that work methods themselves are changing.
The estimable TikTok is beavering away to replicate the smart ad systems of companies like the even more estimable Facebook and Google type companies. If TikTok is lucky as only an outfit linked with a powerful nation state can be, a bit of competition may find its way into the hardened black boxes of the digital replacement for Madison Avenue.
The write up says:
The pitch is all about simplicity and speed — no more weeks of guesswork and endless A/B testing, according to Adolfo Fernandez, TikTok’s director, global head of product strategy and operations, commerce. With TikTok’s AI already trained on what drives successful ad campaigns on the platform, advertisers can expect quick wins with less hassle, he added. The same goes for creative; Smart+ is linked to TikTok’s other AI tool, Symphony, designed to help marketers generate and refine ad concepts.
Okay, knowledge about who clicks what plus automation means less revenue for the existing automated ad system purveyors. The ideas are information about users, smart software, and automation to deliver “simplicity and speed.” Go fast, break things; namely, revenue streams flowing to Facebook and Google.
Why? Here’s a statement from the article answering the question:
TikTok’s worldwide ad revenue is expected to reach $22.32 billion by the end of the year, and increase 27.3% to $28.42 billion by the end of 2025, according to eMarketer’s March 2024 forecast. By comparison, Meta’s worldwide ad revenue is expected to total $154.16 billion by the end of this year, increasing 23.2% to $173.92 billion by the end of 2025, per eMarketer. “Automation is a key step for us as we enable advertisers to further invest in TikTok and achieve even greater return on investment,” David Kaufman, TikTok’s global head of monetization product and solutions, said during the TikTok.
I understand. Now let’s shift gears and ask, “What can bad actors learn from this seemingly routine report about jockeying among social media giants?”
Here are the lessons I think a person inclined to ignore laws and what’s left of the quaint notion of ethical behavior:
- These “smart” systems can be used to advertise bogus or non existent products to deliver ransomware, stealers, or other questionable software
- The mechanisms for automating phishing are simple enough for an art history or poli-sci major to use; therefore, a reasonably clever bad actor can whip up an automated phishing system without too much trouble. For those who need help, there are outfits like Telegram with its BotFather or helpful people advertising specialized skills on assorted Web forums and social media
- The reason to automate are simple: Better, faster, cheaper. Plus, with some useful data about a “market segment”, the malware can be tailored to hot buttons that are hard wired to a sucker’s nervous system.
- Users do click even when informed that some clicks mean a lost bank account or a stolen identity.
Is there a fix for articles which inform both those desperate to find a way to tell people in Toledo, Ohio, that you own a business selling aftermarket 22 inch wheels and alert bad actors to the wonders of automation and smart software? Nope. Isn’t online marketing a big win for everyone? And what if TikTok delivers a very subtle type of malware? Simple and efficient.
Stephen E Arnold, October 10, 2024
A Moment to Remember: Google Explains Its Competitive Posture
September 16, 2024
This essay is the work of a dumb humanoid. No smart software required.
What happens when those with insight into the Google talk in a bar to friends? Answer: Complete indifference. Question: What happens when a former Google employee’s comments are captured in a form which can be discovered by the prosecution in a trial? Answer: A peak inside Googzilla’s kimono.
An observer is horrified by the site revealed when an ex-Google professional talks about what’s inside the Googzilla kimono. Thanks, MSFT Copilot. Good enough.
“Ex-Google Exec Said Goal Was to Crush Competition, Trial Evidence Shows” reports that Google wanted to “crush” the competition. Google wanted a “monopoly.” Here’s what the Reuters’ article reports via its “trust” filter:
“We’ll be able to crush the other networks and that’s our goal,” David Rosenblatt, Google’s former president of display advertising, said of the company’s strategy in late 2008 or early 2009, according to notes shown in court…. “We’re both Goldman and NYSE,” he said, he said, according to the notes, referring to one of the world’s biggest stock exchanges at the time and one of its biggest market makers. “Google has created what’s comparable to the NYSE or London Stock Exchange; in other words, we’ll do to display what Google did to search,” Rosenblatt said.
On the surface, Mr. Rosenblatt is articulating what some folks have been asserting for years. Several observations:
- Google has been running free for a long time. Why?
- If true, the statement makes the outcome of EU litigation almost certain. Google will have to pay and change in ways which may be resisted by the nation-state of Google
- The comment reflects the machismo of the high tech US company and its hubris. Pride and vanity are believed by some to be a fundamental sin.
So what?
- Deconstructing what Google has built over the years may be quite difficult, maybe impossible. Well, that ends one line of retribution.
- If one breaks up Google and severs advertising, who can afford to buy it. Maybe the US should punt and nationalize the outfit. Why not let GSA run it? That would be exciting in my opinion.
- Google apologizes and keeps on doing what it has been doing for the last 25 years by filing appeals, lobbying, and waiting out government lawyers who often come and go as Google says, “I was neither / Living nor dead, and I knew nothing.”
Net net: The Google is gonna Google no matter what.
Stephen E Arnold, September 18, 2024
Meta Leadership: Thank you for That Question
August 26, 2024
Who needs the Dark Web when one has Facebook? We learn from The Hill, “Lawmakers Press Meta Over Illicit Drug Advertising Concerns.” Writer Sarah Fortinsky pulls highlights from the open letter a group of House representatives sent directly to Mark Zuckerberg. The rebuke follows a March report from The Wall Street Journal that Meta was under investigation for “facilitating the sale of illicit drugs.” Since that report, the lawmakers lament, Meta has continued to run such ads. We learn:
The Tech Transparency Project recently reported that it found more than 450 advertisements on those platforms that sell pharmaceuticals and other drugs in the last several months. ‘Meta appears to have continued to shirk its social responsibility and defy its own community guidelines. Protecting users online, especially children and teenagers, is one of our top priorities,’ the lawmakers wrote in their letter, which was signed by 19 lawmakers. ‘We are continuously concerned that Meta is not up to the task and this dereliction of duty needs to be addressed,’ they continued. Meta uses artificial intelligence to moderate content, but the Journal reported the company’s tools have not managed to detect the drug advertisements that bypass the system.”
The bipartisan representatives did not shy from accusing Meta of dragging its heels because it profits off these illicit ad campaigns:
“The lawmakers said it was ‘particularly egregious’ that the advertisements were ‘approved and monetized by Meta.’ … The lawmakers noted Meta repeatedly pushes back against their efforts to establish greater data privacy protections for users and makes the argument ‘that we would drastically disrupt this personalization you are providing,’ the lawmakers wrote. ‘If this personalization you are providing is pushing advertisements of illicit drugs to vulnerable Americans, then it is difficult for us to believe that you are not complicit in the trafficking of illicit drugs,’ they added.”
The letter includes a list of questions for Meta. There is a request for data on how many of these ads the company has discovered itself and how many it missed that were discovered by third parties. It also asks about the ad review process, how much money Meta has made off these ads, what measures are in place to guard against them, and how minors have interacted with them. The legislators also ask how Meta uses personal data to target these ads, a secret the company will surely resist disclosing. The letter gives Zuckerberg until September 6 to respond.
Cynthia Murrell, August 26, 2024
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