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In This Issue:

🔥 Brand safety provider now lets advertisers sidestep Maui wildfire news

🚫 GroupM removes MFAs from its inclusion lists

🕸️ Meta's Threads App prepares to challenge X with a new web version

🎨 AI-created art loses the copyright battle in a US court ruling

🍏 Apple Podcasts upgrades its analytics and publishing integration tools

📸 A glitch erases Twitter images and links from 2011-2014

🎙️ Instagram experiments with audio clips for in-app notes

👫 BeReal enhances its social aspect with a ‘friends of friends' feature

🤖 Meta and TikTok both release new guides on their ad campaign platforms

BRAND SAFETY: The “Wildfire” Filter Not Everyone's Happy With

Peer39, an ad-tech company that provides brand safety tools, now lets advertisers block their ads from appearing next to news stories about the Maui wildfire. That fire has killed more than 100 people since July 11. The company says this helps advertisers avoid negative associations with the disaster.

The feature is called Fire Blocker and it uses AI to guess at what content is on a page, then categorize it into buckets of risk. Media buyers can then use these data points to avoid specific types of content.

The company says it's doing this because of growing demand for more granular control over ad placements.

Not everyone is thrilled with the idea. Digiday today published a piece interviewing some publishers and media analysts criticizing the move, saying keyword blocking punish local news outlets that are covering the crisis. They say contextual targeting doesn't account for the tone, quality, or credibility of the content.

Indeed, it seems nobody's comfortable talking about it.

“When Digiday asked media buying agencies and brand safety verification firm companies if the Maui wildfires were specifically being blocked at the request of advertising clients, all requests were met with declines for comment or no response. Several news publishers, including The Guardian, The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times also declined to comment on the story.”

Meanwhile, some Canadians are having a hard time learning about the devastating fires in Yellowknife and Kelowna. Tens of thousands were forced out of their homes by evacuation orders, but Meta is blocking all news links in the country, as part of its pissing match with the Canadian government. People in the wildfire areas aren't able to share any news coverage on Facebook, Instagram, Threads, or WhatsApp — they just get a message saying news is blocked in Canada.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau this morning said:

“Right now in an emergency situation, where up-to-date local information is more important than ever, Facebook is putting corporate profits ahead of people's safety.”

In a statement to media, Meta said there are other places on its platform that people can get news from that aren't being blocked.

MEDIA BUYING: Another Huge Agency Drops MFAs

They're called MFAs — “made-for-advertising sites.” They're usually poorly designed web pages with a bit of content, but mostly made up of banner ads, auto-play video ads, slots for Google ads, and more. They're heavily monetized pages, and are often part of the inventory for low-quality media buys, like the various versions of “audience networks” out there. Sometimes these sites offer heavily discounted inventory in exchange for guaranteed spending commitments.

But now, one of the world's largest media agencies is done with them. GroupM says it's removing MFA publishers from its inclusion lists.

GroupM’s move follows a similar move by Omnicom in February. Both are part of an industry trade group that's working on developing guidelines for MFA deals.

But some of these publishers defend their business model, saying that they provide value and scale for advertisers, especially in niche or emerging markets. They claim they're compliant with industry standards.

SOCIAL MEDIA: Threads Coming to a Desktop Near You

Meta's Twitter competitor, Threads, has seen a significant drop-off in user engagement since its splashy launch. That can be expected, I guess, considering everyone wanted to kick the tires, but didn't have a strategy for content on the site.

It also suffers from two big omissions — at least from a marketing point of view:

An API, which would let third-party tools like Sprout Social and Agorapulse post to it

A desktop version, which would let social media content managers post without needing to use their phones.

Well, that desktop version may be hours away from launch. Instagram's head said it was basically done, and just being tested internally pre-launch.

Also in the wings, an improved search feature — that's apparently coming “in the next few weeks.”

But don't expect to be able to use or search hashtags for a while — the company said it's not even working on hashtags right now. Instagram's head, Adam Mosseri, said:

“We’re much more focused on the web, on search, which I think can meet a lot of the needs of hashtags.”

LEGAL: Who Owns That AI Image You Made? Nobody.

So your marketing intern has made a really cool image showing your product in a field of lilies, and she used a generative AI tool for it. Your team liked it so much, someone at your Monday meeting said “We should copyright that.”

Well, not so fast.

A US federal judge has ruled that artificial intelligence cannot be the author of a work of art and therefore cannot claim copyright protection. The decision was made in a case involving an AI-generated image created by a system called Creativity Machine. [read the ruling]

The plaintiff is a company that develops neural network technologies. It sued the US Copyright Office after it rejected an application to register a generated image. The image looks like a Monet painting and was part of a series about the afterlife.

But a judge says human authorship is a “bedrock requirement” of copyright and that no work that was “absent any guiding human hand” could be granted protection.

She cited previous cases where animals, like a monkey that took a selfie, were denied authorship rights. She acknowledged that AI could be used as a tool by human artists to create new works, but that would raise “challenging questions” about how much human input is necessary.

PODCASTS: Apple Upgrades Its Subscription and Analytics Tools

Apple has announced several new updates to its podcast creator tools, including Subscription Analytics, Delegated Delivery, and Linkfire integration.

Subscription Analytics is a new dashboard within Apple Podcasts Connect, where podcasters can track metrics around subscriptions and trials. Podcasters can now see how many listeners started a free trial and converted to paid subscribers, how many monthly and annual subscriptions they have, and how much revenue they are generating. They can also filter the data by time period, country, and subscription status.

Delegated Delivery lets podcasters publish their subscriber episodes from other hosting providers — specifically: Audiomeans, Captivate, Podbean, Podspace, and Transistor. This means podcasters can use their preferred tools and platforms to create and distribute their content, while still offering exclusive access to their subscribers on Apple Podcasts. Apple says it is expanding this service to more hosting providers in the coming months.

Linkfire integration lets podcasters access their analytics directly from the Linkfire platform to see how their campaigns are performing and optimize their strategies.

Apple launched podcast subscriptions in May 2023, and now there are thousands of shows offering paid subscriptions there.

X: Images and Links… Poof!

A strange glitch on X, formerly Twitter, has caused images and links posted between 2011 and 2014 to disappear from the site. Apparently the images were still on their servers… just not visible on the site.

The bug affected some of the most viral moments in internet history, such as Ellen’s Oscar selfie that broke Twitter in 2014. The tweet was still online, but there was no image and the t.co link didn't link to anything.

It's happening everywhere — even images and links posted by glorious leader Musk before December 2014 continue to be offline.

It caused a bit of panic over the weekend for people whose life memories are stored there, without backup. Baby photos, weddings, videos of now-deceased relatives — all apparently offline.

The glitch comes amid increasing instability on X, which has faced several outages since Elon made massive job cuts in October last year.

X did not respond to requests for comment.

In Brief

Instagram is testing a new audio clip feature for Notes. This option will allow users to share audio notes with their contacts. The feature aims to enhance engagement, especially in regions with diverse languages. Audio notes can be a useful tool for users who find it easier to understand spoken language than to write it. read more

BeReal is replacing its Discovery feed with a ‘Friends of Friends' feed. Users can now see posts from their friends' connections if they opt-in. The update also allows users to choose which posts to share with this wider circle. Additionally, users can pin three past posts to their profile and tag friends using the @ sign. read more

Meta today released a guide on its evolving ad automation tools. It offers insights into the Advantage suite, detailing how each tool functions.

TikTok too has shared its own guide on the fundamentals of in-app ad campaigns. It provides insights on identifying selling points, creating videos, and optimizing content for the platform.

And finally…

So, you're all ready for your next ad campaign, and you've even booked some digital billboards to make a splash.

Imagine your surprise when instead of your ads, porn started playing on the billboards you booked!

That happened yesterday in Iraq after a hacker thought it'd funny to broadcast x-rated video to people in Uqba bin Nafeh Square, a busy area in Baghdad. Some people speculate it was a protest against the Iraqi government's recent announcement that it planned to block porn sites in the country.

Local media report the screens have been off ever since, and a man is in custody.

Earlier this month, Iraq's media regulator ordered all press and social media platforms operating in the country to replace the word “homosexuality” with “sexual deviance.”

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