Today in Digital Marketing - When Moderation Stops Being Moderate

Starting point is 00:00:00 It's Wednesday, September 21st. I'm Todd Maffin. Today, special treatment TikTok under fire for letting big names get a pass on moderation. Also, you may soon dictate Meta's content policies, a new collaborative ad placement, the wait-and-see approach marketers are taking around media buying, and the most trusted social media platform isn't what you think it is. Here's what you missed today in digital marketing. Have you ever had your brand's content on TikTok, content that did not go against any community guidelines, but nevertheless was flagged, reported, and removed? Then, later, you scrolled through your For You page to find a video from an influencer

Starting point is 00:00:40 that was clearly breaking the rules. One explanation for this? If reports are correct, social media's current golden child has a bias. According to leaked audio from internal meetings last fall, TikTok created a separate, more lenient content moderation system for creators with more than 5 million followers. These high-profile accounts have been designated with creator labels within TikTok's internal systems. This reporting coming from Forbes, by the way. A member of TikTok's trust and safety team explained that the labels were reserved for special users whose content was to be moderated differently than that of second-class users. Quoting that source, we didn't want to

Starting point is 00:01:23 treat these users as like any other accounts. There's a bit more leniency, I'd say. Unquote. Another meeting attendee said this corroborated what he had heard earlier from a different TikTok employee. Quoting that person, The system sounds similar to Facebook's infamous X-Check shielding process, I could post content, and if they were both inappropriate, the famous persons would be able to stay up, unquote. The system sounds similar to Facebook's infamous X-Check shielding process, which was developed to shield certain accounts from having their content moderated.

Starting point is 00:01:53 Maybe Meta isn't the only platform with a two-tiered moderation system, one for the TikTok elite, one for everyone else. When asked about the existence of a separate system for creator content moderation, a TikTok spokesperson denied that it does this today, stating that, quote, TikTok is not more lenient in moderating accounts with more than 5 million followers, unquote. When asked a follow up question, if the company had previously used such a system, the spokesperson has yet to respond. Not to be outdone, Meta has decided apparently to take moderation to a ridiculous level now,

Starting point is 00:02:32 and I'm not making this up. Apparently, they're considering letting users themselves write the platform's policies. Meta hired a policy consulting firm, Behavioral Insights Team, or BIT, to test bringing Facebook users into policy development processes and letting users contribute speech rules. Specifically, users were asked what Meta should do about problematic climate information, which BIT defined as content that is not necessarily false, yet expresses views that may contain misleading, low-quality, or incomplete information that can likely lead to false conclusions.

Starting point is 00:03:07 For its test, Meta and BIT worked to find 250 people who represented the Facebook user base. Two weekends were spent educating them virtually about climate issues and platform policies, as well as offering them access to outside experts and Facebook employees. The group then deliberated and voted on a variety of possible solutions to problematic climate information presented by Facebook. The company did not comment on what the groups decided, only that all three groups had reached a similar consensus. According to the company, their deliberations are now being taken into consideration by teams developing policy updates. BIT said yesterday that participants expressed high satisfaction with the process and its outcome,

Starting point is 00:03:48 while Meta was also impressed with the results and plans to run further experiments in what it calls, quote, platform democracy. Just in time for Black Friday and the holiday buying season, Meta has a new ad placement for us digital marketers. Yesterday, the company announced collaborative ads, which are placements where advertisers can team up on an ad with a retail partner that sells their products. It's meant mostly for local businesses and consumer packaged goods brands. Ads only display products in stock with the most up-to-date pricing. In order to run a collaborative ad, brands must first find participating businesses

Starting point is 00:04:26 in each region that sells their products. This can be done either through Meta's retailer directory or through its sales team. On top of the new ad format, Meta also announced new creator-focused updates to Facebook pages yesterday, including a new post setting that lets creators make content exclusively available

Starting point is 00:04:42 to their top fans and subscribers, new post and story templates that are designed to give shout outs to top fans, and a creator endorsement feature that lets creators recommend their fans follow another creator. Finally, Meta is also testing a new rising creator alert to help users discover new voices they might be interested in. It's the season for new styles, and you love to shop for jackets and boots. So when you do, always make sure you get cash back from Rakuten. And it's not just clothing and shoes. You can get cash back from over 750 stores on electronics, holiday travel, home decor, and more. It's super easy. And before you buy anything, always go to Rakuten first. Join free at rakuten.ca. Start shopping and get your

Starting point is 00:05:33 cash back sent to you by check or PayPal. Get the Rakuten app or join at rakuten.ca. R-A-K-U-T-E-N.ca. Do you have business insurance? If not, how would you pay to recover from a cyber attack, fire damage, theft, or a lawsuit? No business or profession is risk-free. Without insurance, your assets are at risk from major financial losses, data breaches, and natural disasters. Get customized coverage today starting at $19 per month at zensurance.com. Be protected. Be Zen. A couple of larger platforms are continuing to build out their first-party data and offering that data for rent. TripAdvisor announced yesterday it is launching an in-house creative and content studio aimed at helping brands target travel shoppers both on and off the platform.

Starting point is 00:06:21 They're calling it WanderLab. It will operate as an independent studio, but uses TripAdvisor's first-party data. Marketing Creative will include a variety of formats like sponsored brand and editorial content on the TripAdvisor platform, influencer campaigns, and interactive video and voice experiences. Next, retail media platform Walmart Connect announced yesterday it's expanding its ad network with an innovation partner program, allowing access to third-party platforms like TikTok, Snapchat, and Roku. The partnership with Snapchat lets advertisers buy units through Walmart Connect, including augmented reality and collection ads. Advertisers will also be able to serve in-feed ads on TikTok, combining the

Starting point is 00:07:02 platform's sound-on full-screen format with connects, targeting, and measurement. Finally, streamers on Roku can now purchase featured products and have transactions fulfilled by Walmart. Other innovation partners at launch include Firework and TalkShop Live. While ad networks expand their offerings to compete for our ad dollar ahead of Q4, Digiday has a great piece up today that looks at how the industry is changing now that recession seems inevitable. But how much of the industry will be impacted all comes down to flexibility. According to several ad executives interviewed for the article,

Starting point is 00:07:40 flexibility already dominates early discussions about how much ad dollars will be spent next year. Quoting the article, flexibility already dominates early discussions about how much ad dollars will be spent next year. Quoting the piece, from those conversations, it's clear that marketers want wiggle room in the deals they're making, especially when it comes to ad commitments, budgets, campaign scheduling, and media costs. They will price in a full budget, it seems, but with high flexibility to cut as the recession kicks in, unquote. One CEO of a media management business told the author that budget planning appears to be cautious and that there are very few clients that have yet been explicit that budgets will actually be cut. According to Digiday, the data backs this up.

Starting point is 00:08:17 Quote, whether it's from agencies or trade bodies, it all points to one thing. Marketers are bracing for a recession, but with a wait-and-see approach. Which brings us to the lightning round. If you're looking to prioritize platforms that users trust, Pinterest edged LinkedIn to become the most trusted platform this year. That said, trust in social platforms as a whole is falling. All nine platforms in the study were down substantially from last year. A third of TikTok users now say they get their news regularly from TikTok. Meanwhile, nearly

Starting point is 00:08:50 every other social media site saw a decline in users who rely on their platforms for news content. About 45% of Facebook users regularly report getting their news from the social network. That's down 10% from two years ago. Starting today, TikTok plans to make it harder for politicians and political groups to fundraise on the platform and soon plans to ban political and campaign fundraising altogether. For politicians and parties on the platform,

Starting point is 00:09:17 the company said it would immediately turn off all access to advertising and monetization features. Accounts belonging to government politicians and political parties will also need to be verified. And a new partnership between TikTok and Penguin Random House will let users tag books within their clips, tagging into the book talk trend. Users in the US and UK can now access the feature by clicking add link

Starting point is 00:09:39 and searching for book in the creation process. Once you add a book, that link will then refer your viewers to a dedicated book details page. I know I've been rushing out of here without saying a lot of stuff at the end here. It's because we have our municipal elections coming up. And in my community, every time there's an election, I do this like detailed spreadsheet of all the candidates. Mostly just because I'm a nerd and I find it fun. But also, you know, it's helpful for the community and it gets a lot of traffic. So anyway, this year I did it on Notion because I love Notion. If you want to see it, the link is b.link slash vote 2022. My wife and I are heading down into

Starting point is 00:10:19 the US for the next couple of days to visit family. So I will leave you in the capable hands of our associate producer, the intrepid Steph Gunn. I'm Todd Maffin. Thanks for listening. Steph will be here tomorrow. I will see you on Monday. The best time of my life.

Today in Digital Marketing - When Moderation Stops Being Moderate

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