Headline Feb 07, 2018/ ''' 1 *ONLINE-VILLAIN* 1 '''

''' 1 *ONLINE-VILLAIN* 1 '''

IN THE YEARS AHEAD - say three years from now, three of the world's most valuable companies will stand out :

Google, Facebook and The World Students Society, [most lovingly and respectfully called: !WOW!]. In all three, it is obvious to reason that the central role, would always be, ad business.

THE ROLE OF THE AD BUSINESS in much of what's terrible online was highlighted in recent by  two research groups :

New America and the Shorenstein Center in Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard.

''The central problem of disinformation in the world and in the US corrupting American political culture is not Russian spies or a particular social media platform,'' two researchers- Dipyan Ghosh and Ben Scott, wrote in the report  :

The central problem is that the entire industry is built to leverage sophisticated technology to aggregate user attention and sell advertising.''

Pretend you are the lead detective on a hit new show,'' CSI : Terrible Stuff  on the Internet.'' In the first episode, you set up one of those-

Crazy walls plastered with headlines and headshots, looking for hidden connections between everything awful been happening online  recently.

There's a lot of dark stuff.  In one corner, you have the Russian campaign to influence the  2016  presidential election with digital propaganda. In another, a rash of repugnant videos on YouTube, with-

Children being mockabused, cartoon characters bizarrely committing suicide on the kids channel and popular blogger recording a body hanging from a tree.

Then there's tech ''addiction,'' the rising worry that adults and children are getting hooked on  smartphones and social networks despite our best efforts to resist the constant desire a fix.

And all over the  Internet, general fakery abounds -there are millions of fake followers on Twitter and Facebook, fake rehab centers being touted on Google and even fake review sites to sell you a mattress.

SO who is the central villain in this story, the driving force behind much of the chaos and disrepute online?

This isn't that hard. You don't need a crazy wall to figure it out, because the force to blame  has been quietly shaping the contours of life online since just about the  beginning of life online :

*Its the advertising business, stupid*.

And if you want to fix much of what ails the Internet right now, the ad business would be the perfect perp to handcuff and restrain -and perhaps even reform.

ADS are the lifeblood of the Internet, the source of funding just about everything you read, watch and hear online.

The digital ad business is an many ways a miracle machine -it corrals and transforms latent attention into real money that pays for many truly useful inventions, from research to instant translation to video hosting to global mapping.

But the online machine is also a vast, opaque and dizzyingly complex contraption underappreciated  capacity for misuse -one that collects and constantly profiles data about our behaviour, create incentives-

To monetize our most private desires and frequently unleashes loopholes that the shadiest of people are only too happy to exploit.

And for all its power,  the digital ad business has long been underregulated and underpoliced, both by the companies that run it and by the world's governments.

IN THE UNITED STATES, the industry has been almost untouched by oversight, even though it forms the primary revenue stream of  two of the planet's most valuable companies, Google and Facebook.

''In the early days of  online media, the choice was essentially made - give it away for free, and advertising would produce the revenue,'' said Randail Rothenberg, the chief executive of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, a trade association that represents companies in the digital ad business.

''A lot of things we see now flow out from that decision.''

Mr. Rothenberg's organization has long pushed for stronger standards for online advertising. In a speech last year, he implored the industry to ''take civic responsibility for our effect on the world.''

But he conceded the business was growing and changing too quickly for many to comprehend its excesses and externalities - let alone to fix them.

''Technology has been largely outpacing the ability of individual companies to understand what is actually going on,'' he said. ''There's really an unregulated stock market effect to the whole thing.''

Facebook, which reported its earning on Wednesday last, said its advertising principles hold that ads  should ''be safe and civil''. It defended the target ad business's overall value, arguing that-

Digital advertising connects people to products and services from small businesses and ''creates jobs and helps the economy''.

The company also pointed to several steps it had taken recently. ''We've tightened our ad policies, hired more reviewers, and created a new team to help detect and prevent abuses,'' said Rob Goldman, Facebook's vice president for advertising.

''We're also testing a tool that will bring more transparency to ads running on our platform. We know there is more work to do, but our goal is to keep people safe.''

A spokesman for Google, whose parent company Alphabet, was to reports its earnings on Thursday, said it was constantly policing its ad system, pointing out recent steps it has taken to address problems arising from ad business, including several changes to YouTube.

The Honor and Serving of the latest  ''Operational Research'' on Technologies and Innovation and State of the world continues. And with many thanks for the author and researcher Farhad Manjoo.
     
With respectful dedication to the Leaders, Technologists, Students, Professors and Teachers of the world. See Ya all on !WOW! -the World Students Society and Twitter-!E-WOW! -the Ecosystem 2011:

''' Alarms & Rallies '''

Good Night and God Bless

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless