This piece appeared in Campaign Magazine UK one week after the riot at the Capitol in Washington DC
There
is nothing ambiguous about the role the marketing and advertising
industry has played in the radicalisation of US politics and the
horrifying events of recent days. There is a clear line connecting
adtech and radicalisation.
While it has been widely reported and
acknowledged that social media has played a significant role in the
schism in US society, there is a deeper, more nuanced truth behind the
deterioration of our politics.
The wedge that has been driven
into the fabric of US society has been driven in part by information
gathered about American citizens by the adtech ecosystem and fed into
algorithms that are employed by platforms and online publishers.
The
purpose of these algorithms is primarily to keep visitors “inside the
corral” of the publisher or the platform. The more time a visitor spends
in the corral, the more money the platform can realise from selling ad
space.
To do this, the platforms feed visitors ever more “engaging” content.
Experience has taught the algorithms that the more juicy the material,
the more likely they are to retain the visitor.
Consequently, the
algorithms feed us incrementally more lurid notions of our own
predispositions and connect us ever more closely with others who share
them.
that after the presidential election of 2016, a team of Facebook
executives undertook an internal study to understand how its policies
shaped the behaviour of its users.
The study concluded
that algorithms they use “to gain user attention and increase time on
the platform” were driving people apart.
According to the report,
“64% of all extremist group joins are due to our recommendation tools…
Our recommendation systems grow the problem.”
A slide from the
presentation said: “Our algorithms exploit the human brain’s attraction
to divisiveness.” If left unchecked, it warned, Facebook would feed
users “more and more divisive content in an effort to gain user
attention and increase time on the platform”.
According to the WSJ story, “Facebook
is under fire for making the world more divided. Many of its own
experts appeared to agree – and to believe Facebook could mitigate many
of the problems. The company chose not to.”
This report revealed
the truth that Facebook and friends are more than a “bulletin board”
where people express their opinions. It unambiguously describes the way
these platforms actively direct people into extremist groups whose
purpose is to divide us.
But there’s more to this story. We need to be honest with ourselves.
For years, we have been hiding behind the skirts of Facebook and other
online platforms.
While these companies have taken the heat, it
has been largely unrecognised by the public that it is for the sole
benefit of the advertising and marketing industry that Facebook and
others do their squalid work. We are the hidden hand that guides and
finances these dangerous practices.
In light of the murder and
mayhem at the Capitol in Washington on 6 January, it has been suggested
that some in the Republican Party need to stop pretending they didn’t
understand the consequences of standing by quietly while dangerous,
irresponsible lies were being promulgated by members of their party.
I
would like to suggest that we in the advertising industry are no less
guilty of standing by quietly and pretending we don’t understand the
consequences – in our case, of our dangerous addiction to adtech and the
concomitant destruction it engenders.
For years, many of us have
described adtech as dangerous. It is now time to upgrade that
description to disastrous. The leaders of our industry – the ANA, the 4As, IAB, and the chief marketing officers of our biggest advertisers – must face up to what adtech is doing to our society and act immediately and decisively to reform it.
