Today in Digital Marketing - 🩳 Pants, Canada?!

Starting point is 00:00:00 It is Tuesday, July 18th. Today, email exploit, how one message could bring down your brand's WhatsApp account. Bing's chatbot wants to be in big agencies. The Twitter challenger with dark clouds in its blue skies. And on the ad-free premium podcast, which you can learn more about by tapping Go Premium in the show notes. Andrew Foxwell on the small but critical change to attribution reporting on Meta's ad platform. I'm Todd Mathen. That's ahead today in digital marketing. A security expert issued a warning to all WhatsApp users this week, revealing a vulnerability that lets anyone deactivate their accounts with a single email.

Starting point is 00:00:44 And the worst part is that email can come from anyone. If a phone is lost or stolen, WhatsApp lets users deactivate their accounts to protect their data. But literally anyone with the phone number attached to your brand's account can request this and remotely deactivate your brand's account. According to the WhatsApp support page, the process involves sending an email to a specified address with the phrase,

Starting point is 00:01:09 lost, stolen, please deactivate my account, along with the associated phone number, and the account gets instantly deactivated. When an account is deactivated, it isn't immediately deleted and your contacts can still view your profile and send you messages. Those messages, though, remain pending for up to 30 days after deactivation,

Starting point is 00:01:29 giving users time to reactivate their accounts before deletion. Luckily, the fix is simple. Your account gets reactivated when you log back in. But that's not comforting news for brand managers who might use Meta's APIs to connect to WhatsApp, which wouldn't result in a login since the third party tool would be working there, not the mobile app. The security researcher also found that they could probably get an account permanently closed by simply sending deactivation emails every day for 30 days. WhatsApp has made updates in response to this issue and has changed this feature. Now, users will receive a confirmation receipt for the deactivation request, followed by a further verification step to prove account ownership, which requires documentation like a copy of the

Starting point is 00:02:15 phone bill or contract. But either way, it's always a good idea to log into your brand's accounts regularly and double-check your security settings. One of the things that marketers got excited about chatbots like Bing and ChatGPT was the potential for rewriting copy, or developing pitches, or coming up with a text for a difficult client email. And indeed, some brands and agencies did start to use the bots that way. Others, though, usually larger agencies, held back out of fear that any sort of proprietary work put into a bot, like, say, a client's sales data, would be used for AI training and get out into the real world. However, Microsoft today released a version of its chatbot, Bing Chat, that addresses that concern. Bing Chat Enterprise does not save chat data. Microsoft says it won't use the data you put into it to train AI models.

Starting point is 00:03:11 In fact, Microsoft says it can't even view what your staff put into it. The Enterprise version looks very similar to the consumer version. It'll still provide answers with citations, charts, and images. The new Enterprise service will be available in select Microsoft 365 plans for free

Starting point is 00:03:27 and will be accessible wherever Bing Chat, the consumer version, is supported. Blue Sky, considered by some the darling of the anti-Twitters, is facing backlash for failing to stop users from using racial slurs in their handles despite violating its community guidelines. Last week, users reported an account is facing backlash for failing to stop users from using racial slurs in their handles, despite violating its community guidelines. Last week, users reported an account with a racial slur as its username.

Starting point is 00:03:54 The account had been active for 16 days before users flagged it, and Blue Sky said it removed it the same day, saying user handles using slur words constitute harassment. The company claims to have made changes to prevent handles from being created. But those changes failed to account for existing accounts, leading another user to just change their handle to a racial slur just hours after the update. And then Blue Sky went silent. The CEO, one of the lead developers, pretty much everyone on the small team, seemed to go offline and weren't responding to questions and posts about the issue. Perhaps more than the issue itself, this silence really seemed to piss off its user base.

Starting point is 00:04:33 Several users then discovered that Blue Sky had removed a bunch of offensive slurs from the banned word list and frustrated with a lack of an apology, many have threatened to leave the platform. Following the uproar, Blue Sky updated its terms of service and community guidelines, and users asked whether this would be handled by human staff or automated moderation. Blue Sky didn't respond to that, instead posting a fairly generic thread saying racism and harassment have no place on its platform.

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Starting point is 00:05:24 starting at $19 per month at zensurance.com. Be protected. Be Zen. TikTok is now in the talent management business. The company today launching Elevate, a new program designed to identify rising music artists. TikTok says they'll be giving these artists access to new features, will amplify their content, and will get more support through the company's official social channels. TikTok, though, did not explain how it will select artists for this program, and says it looks at both signed and unsigned talent to build a roster of artists. The program will run exclusive performances by each artist in their hometowns at locations that inspired their music. These concerts will be for friends, family, and fans. The concerts will, of course, be filmed

Starting point is 00:06:06 for a content series available on the app so fans can watch the performances. The company also revealed today it has signed a licensing deal with Warner Music Group, promising to help the label's artists and songwriters unlock new revenue from TikTok's user base. And finally, it is World Emoji Day and Emojipedia has shared its list of the top 10 most used emoji of 2023. Is it emoji or emojis for plural? Anyway, globally, the top three emojis

Starting point is 00:06:37 of the year so far are the loudly crying emoji. That's not the one with the big smile. That's the one with the tears kind of going vertical. Then the one with the big smile. That's the one with the tears kind of going vertical. Then the one you're thinking of, which is the rolling on the floor laughing emoji. There are two variations. This is the one that's kind of cocked off to the side and the red heart. The face emoji website also shared the most popular emoji by region in the US and Canada. That crying emoji reigns supreme. But I can't figure out Canada because in second place, which, by the way, the rest of the world had the usual rolling on the floor and the red heart. Canada's runner up was pants. Well, not pants specifically, but orange shorts, which

Starting point is 00:07:18 not only have I never used this emoji and I live in Canada, I've also never actually seen it out in the wild before. This was literally the first time I'd seen Canada. I've also never actually seen it out in the wild before. This was literally the first time I'd seen it. So anyway, Canadians, let me in on the secret. Do you guys know something I don't? A couple hundred people now subscribe to our free LinkedIn newsletter. It's called the top story. You can find it at todayindigital.com slash top story or just tap the link in the show notes.

Starting point is 00:07:49 It sends you our lead story every day. All right. See you tomorrow. Steal attention and block the past Sunshine, there's always sunshine when you're around

Today in Digital Marketing - 🩳 Pants, Canada?!

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