Rabbbits Weeekly: 05.20.22
Everything's bigger in Texas, including stupidity. Plus, the usual headline roundup for ads, algorithms, audiences, attack vectors, analytics (not really), and an assorted bit.
Anti-Social Behavior
A New Orleans appeals circuit court has lifted an injunction and allowed a Texas law to go into effect that, according to The Washington Post, “bars social media companies from removing posts based on a user’s political ideology.” Initial reaction: can’t just about anything be claimed to relate to someone’s political ideology?
I think it’s important to remember that these platforms are private companies, not the public square. Just like a bar can tell a patron to leave if they violate their rules, Twitter can tell a user to leave if they violate their rules. This is not a personal opinion, this is reality. We may treat them like they are the only source of information, but that is just the perception and power we’ve given them.
This is what the law says:
Sec. 143A.002. CENSORSHIP PROHIBITED. (a) A social media platform may not censor a user, a user's expression, or a user's ability to receive the expression of another person based on:
the viewpoint of the user or another person;
the viewpoint represented in the user's expression or another person's expression; or
a user's geographic location in this state or any part of this state.
(b) This section applies regardless of whether the viewpoint is expressed on a social media platform or through any other medium.
What? Content moderation can’t happen based on someone’s personal beliefs or location in Texas no matter where their viewpoint was expressed? So, basically, content moderation can’t happen.
If this law stands, social platforms are about to get really fun, By which I mean not at all. Spammers and trolls unite!
It’s a really terrible law, but I’ll outsource my ranting to Mike Masnick, because he did it better than I could.
You know what Twitch recently did that was illegal under this law? Took down the livestream of the recent mass shooting in New York. Welcome to the 4chan-ing of the internet.
(This law also makes a lot of email spam filtering illegal. This is straight up garbage drafted by people that don’t understand technology but have convinced themselves big tech platforms have it out for them because most people definitely want to hear from them.)
A (different) proposed law, The Competition and Transparency in Digital Advertising Act, would prevent large ad platforms from both selling and buying ads. (cough cough Google cough Meta cough) So bye bye Facebook Audience Network (long overdue on this one). Google has a harder road, they'll have to split some things up (Google Ads vs. AdSense, etc.). Wonder if they can keep everything under the Alphabet umbrella though.
And another proposed form of regulation is the Digital Platform Commission Act, which would create a 5 person commission to oversee large tech platforms and work in the public interest. Surprise, surprise, content moderation is a callout.
(And, no, I am not a social media evangelist. Here’re 8 good reasons why.)
Attack Vectors
A.k.a. The Doom & Gloom Corner
Personal data for ad targeting is zipped all over the world billions of times per day to all kinds of players. This is fine.
Bing no longer allows for anonymous sitemap submission, because spammers gonna spam.
VMware and Big-IP have some seriously major exploits being used “in the wild”. Approach appears to be backed by a nation-state (or more than one). In one case, the update was reverse engineered to exploit the error it was supposed to patch. Can’t wait for the fallout from this.
Audiences
Two pieces that make an interesting puzzle:
TikTok is for Boomers. The Trend Machine is growing in popularity amongst the 60+ set. Well, this is an interesting demographic combo.
YouTube is cooler than TikTok...for Gen Z'ers...in the UK. (Do with this what you will.)
When you buy customer info from big data brokers (Experian, etc (yeah, credit scoring is just a front for them (and a completely made up one at that))), you’re really just buying hopes and wishes. They fill in gaps in their data with guesses based on demographics and consumer groupings (hello Topics!). These guesses appear to be no better than chance. So, money well spent?
Some solid CTA advice:
Be relevant (both with context and where the user is in their journey)
Be clear (what does “learn more” mean, think beyond the Facebook ad manager options)
Be repetitive (usually a key with marketing)
Yes, your website does need to be accessible. The DOJ has confirmed this. So, what how do you do that?
Use enough contrast
Don't use color as the only information conveyance device
Use alt tags
Use captions in videos
Don't only use a mouse to navigate
Make sure screen readers and "see" labels (especially in forms)
Even more detail if you want it.
Algorithms
In case you didn’t get your fill last week, more voice assistant stuff! They are beginning to mash together the two aphorisms (did I use that right?): the less you talk, the smarter you are and a picture’s worth a thousand words. (I am far more interested in ambient and edge computing than VR (AR bridges the gap between the two, depending on application) as I think it has a broader user base and, frankly, think VR leads to a never outside dystopia.)
Everyone's favorite feature on LinkedIn is the whole "see who viewed your profile" thing. At least that's what TikTok appears to believe as they've swiped the idea for themselves. (Honestly, it looks more like read receipts to me since it works both ways: when someone views your content and when you view someone else's)
If you really want to know how brands are using social media (hint: TikTok is the next frontier), this report might be for you.
Pay with your face! (Or a wave.) Mastercard is getting in on the FaceID fun with their new Biometric Checkout Program. We are all cyborgs now.
Ads
Want to know what other brands in your industry are paying for search ads? Here you go!
More ads in more places! Marriott is getting in on the media network trend (like every other company that might have some form of consumer data they can call "first party"). This play could be interesting due to the nature of where ads will show and the strength of their rewards program.
If you're the kind of person that likes testing things in your ad account, here's a list of 7 ad copy tests you can try out.
Analytics
Everyone is just freaking out about GA4 and I’ve been in the weeds trying to figure it all out.
Assorteds & Alternates
A badass nun in the DRC built a micro hydroelectric plant to power the convent, church, two schools, and a clinic after getting fed up with the regular outages from the grid.