AUSTRALIA THREATENS JAIL FOR SOCIAL MEDIA EXECS

The live-streaming of the massacre lasted 17 minutes, and video of it was easily findable on social media hours after the fact. Prime Minister Scott Morrison said social media platforms "can get an ad to you in half a second...they should be able to pull down this sort of terrorist material and other types of very dangerous material in the same sort of time frame."

Morrison and the Attorney-General Christian Porter met to discuss the issue with tech executives including Facebook, Twitter and Google on Tuesday. Porter described the discussion with the executives as "thoroughly underwhelming." I wonder how much AI horseshit he heard?

The cynical bastards here at The Ad Contrarian Global Headquarters think the Aussie leaders are well-meaning but grandstanding -- like politicians everywhere. We'd be very surprised if anything of substance comes of this.

I happen to know and like some executives of the WFA and believe their hearts are in the right place. (I spoke at their annual conference two years ago. Sadly, a lot of what I warned about has come to pass.) The problem is, asking most marketers to voluntarily do something for the good of the public is like asking your dog not to pee in the azaleas. As we've seen for years, marketers will do nothing about the atrocious irresponsibility of the online publishers they sustain and enrich unless either the public or the authorities demand it.

To add insult to injury, according to the WFA, their contituents said that "improving the online ecosystem is...the single biggest issue the marketing industry needed to address in 2019." And what are these marketers doing to address this issue? Throwing all the money they can at some of the biggest, most irresponsible offenders.

OK, I know you've been waiting patiently for this week's scandalous Facebook story, so here we go. This week, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) sued Facebook for allowing "advertisers to exclude people from seeing housing ads based on their race, religion, background and other characteristics" (AdAge.) You might say Facebook is being sued for practicing their dangerous yet massively lucrative business model - precision targeting.

Apparently, Facebook had been working with HUD to try to resolve this problem of housing discrimination. But it seems that Facebook ran afoul of the department when they refused to provide HUD with data they requested.

Facebook said, "While we were eager to find a solution, HUD insisted on access to sensitive information—like user data—without adequate safeguards." Please read that sentence again to grasp its full Orwellian absurdity. Facebook complaining about someone else's "access to user data without adequate safeguards?" Are you fucking kidding me?

You know what the next line is...you can't make this shit up.

General Joseph Dunford, Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, says “The work that Google is doing in China is indirectly benefiting the Chinese military,”  Google claims "We are not working with the Chinese military.” But acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan says, “The fusion of commercial business with military is significant.” The Daily Beast says, "Due to Chinese ruler Xi Jinping’s announced policy of 'civil-military fusion,' there is no longer any meaningful distinction between civil and military research."

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