The Guardian Changing Media Summit – taking on fake news, ad fraud and filter bubbles
Fake news, fraudulent advertising and a post-truth US president making policy via Twitter are some of the recent developments that are undermining the credibility of the world’s media. But the crisis of trust is not confined to the digital sphere. Across the media industry, relationships are becoming fractious, with mounting distrust between brands and their advertising agencies, while newspapers and TV stations are battling for ad revenues with Google and Facebook.
These issues dominated the Guardian Changing Media Summit 2017, held in London on 15-16 March. Leading figures from the world of media addressed the loss of trust and a range of problems, such as advertising fraud, viewability and ad placement. More than 700 delegates from newspaper publishers, TV stations, digital platforms and media and advertising agencies attended sessions that sought solutions to these problems.
The issue of digital advertising fraud was a hot topic. There was a heated debate about digital ads being placed on unsuitable websites. A recent newspaper investigation found that automated systems were placing ads from leading brands on inappropriate sites, such as those promoting violent jihadism.
“A lot of brands are appearing in a lot of bad places,” Johnny Hornby, founder of agency The&Partnership told a session on ad fraud. He highlighted research from his agency and fraud detection specialist Adloox showing that digital advertising is predicted to hit $80bn (£65bn) globally this year, of which $16bn could be fraudulent. For instance, online users are fraudulently redirected to fake websites, which take payment for advertising viewed.
Hornby advised brands to use verification software to identify where their ads appear online. He felt much of the blame for the problems lies with Google and Facebook, which control the lion’s share of online advertising. He called for a strike by advertisers if the problem is not resolved: “The industry needs to get together, clients and agencies, and we need to do something. If Google and Facebook – which will be 60% or 70% of that $80bn – won’t do something about this, we are going to do something, which is we aren’t going to advertise with you for a quarter or a month.”
Whether such a boycott of Google and Facebook would reduce fraud and inappropriate ad placement is open to question, but the call shows how seriously brands and agencies take the problem.
Meanwhile, a huge threat to the credibility of digital media is fake news. Using clickbait headlines to draw in viewers, the fake news sites make money from digital advertising.
Accusations of fakery are undermining public trust in news media generally. Fake news is a threat not only to media organisations but to society in general, as the Guardian’s chief revenue officer, Hamish Nicklin, told one of the sessions: “In a world where the most powerful people on the planet are using fake news and alternative facts as weapons to undermine truth and those values so many of us hold so dear, it is clear that the truth itself needs some protection.”
The events of the past year – with the election of Donald Trump as US president and the Brexit referendum – have driven up visits to established news sites. The Guardian has seen traffic increase more than 33% in 2017 compared with 2015, to more than 30m page views a day in the first months of this year.
So what can be done about fake news? One suggestion was for Google and Facebook to provide information about the sources of news – such as how long they have existed (fake news sites spring up weekly) and their credibility rating. Facebook’s director of media partnerships for EMEA, Patrick Walker, told one of the sessions: “We take fake news very seriously – we appreciate that people’s reliance on Facebook for news has increased dramatically.”
He said the social network is making it easier for users to report fake stories. And it has created a system of third-party fact-checking where journalists are asked to check whether a story is true. Stories would be flagged as “disputed”. The company is also looking at suggesting alternative news sources when controversial stories arise in users’ news feeds.
In a separate session, Jeff Jarvis, a professor of media at CUNY’s Graduate School of Journalism, told the summit that the liberal media had some responsibility for the rise of Donald Trump and rightwing populism because it had failed to empathise with the experience of conservative Americans. “We did not reflect their world view,” he said. “We in liberal media left a vacuum that was readily filled by Murdoch and Breitbart and Drudge.”
But one audience member from India warned of the dangers of empathising with nationalist and populist viewpoints. “You have empathy for the other point of view and the other point of view has become more strident, more abusive, more aggressive,” she said: “It emboldens them to more bad behaviour.” Jarvis replied: “I am not suggesting we embolden them by accepting the message they have, we have got to understand their world.”