Advertisers are leaning on social-media companies to clean up the online swamp of sexism, racism, hate and fake news, but the cure could be as bad as the disease.
Despite their potential for a free and enlightening exchange of ideas and information, Facebook, Twitter and other social-media platforms have spread anger, intolerance and lies that are eating away at the values of democratic societies.
While many wring their hands over how to stop the tide of poison, some powerful advertisers are speaking the language that is clearly understood: Money.
鈥淐onsumers don鈥檛 trust what they see online,鈥� Unilever鈥檚 chief marketing officer, Keith Weed, said at a conference this week. And Unilever, which spends more than $2 billion a year on online advertising alone, doesn鈥檛 want its brands stained by that lack of trust.
One of the largest advertisers in the world, Unilever has threatened to pull its ads unless the platforms make improvements quickly.
But while we might applaud the company鈥檚 defence of responsible speech, do we want corporations dictating what can and can鈥檛 be said on our social-media feeds? How do we know that Unilever鈥檚 notion of unacceptable speech 鈥� or Facebook鈥檚 鈥� is the same as ours?
Traditional media companies such as newspapers have long tried to keep a wall between advertisers and newsrooms to prevent the perception that news can be shaped by untoward pressure. The goal is to avoid the erosion of trust that social-media platforms are seeing.
Allowing corporate interference in free speech will undercut trust just as much as hateful comments do.
This swamp has to be drained, but we need to think carefully about how to drain it.
