ZEENAT MOORAD: How can tech titans regulate user-generated content?
Talk about a threat. Should tech platforms like Facebook and Google not minimise divisive content, Marmite maker Unilever will pull its advertising. This is not the kind of ultimatum to be ignored – after Procter & Gamble (P&G), Unilever is the second-largest marketing spender in the world. A quarter of its US$9.5bn budget is spent on digital ads. Keith Weed, the group’s chief marketing officer, this week called on Silicon Valley for better policing of objectionable content that stokes hate and distrust. "We cannot continue to prop up a digital supply chain. .. which at times is little better than a swamp in terms of its transparency. "Fake news, racism, sexism, terrorists spreading messages of hate, toxic content directed at children – parts of the Internet we have ended up with are a million miles from where we thought it would take us." The question is, though, how do these tech titans regulate or derisk user-generated content that their businesses effectively rely on? On its mos...
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