Do we have to let so much of our digital lives be controlled by advertisers like Google?
I’m allergic to the word ‘content’. I find it a demeaning and patronising way to describe creative work on the internet. ‘Content’ is soulless marketing jargon for the creative work people actually want to see, or read, or hear; you know that thing that comes after the ads. Calling a piece of creative expression ‘content’ should be an insult. And yet, creators across the internet routinely self-identify as ‘content creators’. Do we have to let so much of our digital lives be controlled by advertisers?
A couple of weeks ago there was some drama on YouTube when it turned out that YouTube had changed its rules to effectively prohibit swearing in the first 8 seconds of a video by way of making sure any such video would not net its creator any revenue. Suddenly videos made years ago were flagged as being ‘advertiser unfriendly content’ and were no longer eligible for making money for the creators. By the stroke of a keyboard, the rules and culture of a thriving platform filled with creative expression had to adapt to fickle new rules which apparently applied retroactively. All to satisfy advertisers, apparently a more important stakeholder than creators or users. Complaining about the specific timings on swearing might sound like making a mountain of a molehill but I think it's an indication of how the current internet economy is warped. Why does it matter if you say “fuck” six rather than eight seconds into a video?
Creative expression has always been beholden to economic interests, and I don’t mean to make a reductive “creativity good, capitalism bad” argument here. Rather, I want to highlight how firms like Google and Meta have been allowed to gather extraordinary power over our culture by being the masters of rules regarding internet platforms. The American department of justice (DoJ) recently filed a lawsuit against Google for using anti-competitive business methods to effectively create a monopoly over digital advertising. Google has an incredible ~90% market share on the sell side of a digital advertising transaction, a ~50% market share of the ad exchange market, and a ~40-80% market share on the buy side of a digital ad transaction depending on what method the ad buyer uses according to the DoJ. That centralisation causes severe distortions in ad pricing which harm both internet creators and advertisers as Google gets fees for facilitating the deal between the advertiser and the creator.
While the DoJ has a scope which is limited to the economics of Google’s stranglehold over advertising, it’s important to consider the cultural power that comes with it. I doubt that Google will exert its cultural influence forcefully, unlike Twitter Google appears to have functioning governance structures, but it’s still troubling that a privately owned firm has that power. In the same policy change referenced earlier YouTube also made other changes regarding profanity. By the click of a mouse, ‘damn’ and ‘hell’ are no longer considered to be swear words. These sorts of policy changes can seem harmless, but consider how TikTok’s rules have generated a new lexicon for evading its algorithms and discussing controversial topics in spite of advertisers’ wishes. If using the word ‘suicide’ gets you shadow banned, people start saying ‘unalive’ instead. Social media has enormous cultural power, and because social media firms famously run ads by extension so does advertisers and those who facilitate advertising.
The internet is built on privacy infringement and advertising; which go hand in hand. If we want an internet which respects user privacy and treat creators as artists rather than simply content creators we need to change how the advertising industry operates. The DoJ’s effort is commendable, but governments need to consider the cultural impact social media giants have as well as the economic impacts in order to craft legislation that can substantially improve the internet for average users, creators, and advertisers. These groups’ interests need not be in opposition, in fact limiting the power of firms like Google is a great first step towards a better internet for all.
If you liked this post you can read a previous post about the classified documents scandals here or the rest of my writings here. It would mean a lot to me if you recommended the blog to a friend or coworker. Come back next Monday for a new post!
I've always been interested in politics, economics, and the interplay between. The blog is a place for me to explore different ideas and concepts relating to economics or politics, be that national or international. The goal for the blog is to make you think; to provide new perspectives.
Written by Karl Johansson
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Cover photo by Marcus Herzberg from Pexels, edited by Karl Johansson
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