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A senior adviser to Boris Johnson was involved in trying to stop the media reporting images of a four-year-old boy photographed sleeping on a hospital floor.

The Conservative aide contacted the press regulator Ipso on behalf of Sarah Williment, the mother of the boy, after the health secretary, Matt Hancock, spoke to her by phone, according to individuals with knowledge of the case.

The regulator then issued a notice asking the press to not name the boy or use the photograph, which had previously been widely used.

It is highly unusual for a political party to send a complaint to the press regulator on behalf of an individual and seemed designed to try to limit reporting of the row. The image had become one of the defining photos of the final week of the campaign.

A Conservative party source confirmed that a senior Tory adviser had sent the letter to the press regulator on behalf of Williment because she wasnt happy with the excessive coverage of the incident.

The unusual intervention, first reported by BuzzFeed News, was made as the Conservatives struggled to contain the row over the photograph. Pictures of the child on the floor at Leeds General Infirmary were published initially in the Yorkshire Post and followed up by the Daily Mirror.

On Monday, Johnson had grabbed a reporters phone and put it in his pocket when he was confronted with the photograph.

Hancock was then sent to the hospital in an attempt to bring the story under control. During his visit, Tory sources said he spoke to Williment over the phone. Another aide approached journalists about the story on Monday afternoon, warning them to consult with their news desks before following up the story.

In an apparent bid to silence other news outlets from following up on the story one of the prime ministers most senior aides contacted Ipso, saying they were acting on behalf of Williment.

The aide also sent the letter to the BBC, which reported extracts of it, claiming the story was causing significant distress to the boy and his family.

Originally posted here:
Boris Johnson aide tried to stop media using image of boy on hospital floor - The Guardian

"Data-Driven Thinking" is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media.

Todays column is written by Kerel Cooper, SVP of global marketing at LiveIntent.

Technology, obviously, has its barriers. It takes skill, patience, resolve and education to really compete and innovate in our complicated field.

For so long, it felt like the only companies that could really wield boundary-pushing technology in digital advertising were the tech platforms that specialized in hiring, acquiring and managing for it. It took resources and know-how, and no one had more of both than the triopoly of Google, Facebook and Amazon.

However, the barriers for dexterity in technology have declined over the years. What once required a background in data science or data analysis is now mitigated by platforms that employ user-friendly UX, essentially democratizing the ability to wield technologies. As a result, AI can be leveraged by nearly everyone, and brands and publishers are now exploring doing things on their own that used to be solely in the domain of the tech platforms. This was a trend that began to gain steam in 2019, and it will accelerate in 2020.

Nikes acquisition of Celect is Exhibit A. At first glance, you may not be blown away by this acquisition. Ho-hum, a major brand made an investment in being able to personalize previously anonymous traffic to its site. But whats impressive is that Nike would previously trust other partners to provide some level of personalization.

The lowering of the barrier to entry for technological dexterity meant that Nike, which didnt grow up as a technology company, was now able to act like one. It acquired a technology that allowed it to truly make use of the troves of first-party data it has accumulated through goodwill, loyalty and a great product, instead of handing that bounty to platforms, specifically Amazons walled garden. The acquisition will help Nike with its move to partially sever its relationship with Amazon in favor of raising the level of consumer experience via more direct relationships.

Brands and publishers often follow each others advancements. Brands famously mimicked publishers by investing in editorial talent to make their own content compelling, and publishers have begun to think like brands by diversifying revenue streams and selling products outside their traditional core areas of expertise.

The northern light here, as with so many publisher advancements, is The Washington Post. The Washington Post launched Zeus in September as a way of bringing control back to the publishers for ad buying. It is clearly trying to disintermediate the interlopers that stand in between it and its customers when it comes to earning revenue.

Nike and The Washington Post arent alone. Hearst and the Financial Times are also exploring their own self-serve ad platforms to better compete against Facebook. McDonalds and Walmart have also made moves to own more of their technology stacks with their acquisitions of Dynamic Yield and Polymorph Labs, respectively. And hot off the presses is the news of Sams Club acquiring Triad, bringing in house the functions that would have, until very recently, been the domain of a vendor.

This below-the-radar trend is likely to explode in the coming years. Brands and publishers know that to control their own destiny, they need to position themselves to operate as independently as possible.

That was once unthinkable, even for giants like Nike and The Washington Post. In these early days, its just a few brands and publishers making concerted efforts to own their solutions, but I predict that soon, more entities will embrace investing in their deployment.

Follow Kerel Cooper (@kerel_cooper), LiveIntent (@LiveIntent) and AdExchanger (@adexchanger) on Twitter.

Originally posted here:
2019: The Year Brands And Publishers Began Taking Control Of Their Tech Stacks - AdExchanger

An example of a binge ad on Hulu from Maker's Mark.

Hulu

Hulu said Thursday it's now rolling out a new type of advertising for binge viewers, which will seek to reward them for watching three or more episodes with an offer from a brand or a commercial-free episode.

The Disney-controlled streaming video service, which unveiled details of the new ad experience during its NewFront presentation back in May, said in a blog post Thursday it's launching the ad experience with agency partner Publicis Media, part of French holding company Publicis Groupe, and advertisers including Kellogg's, Maker's Mark and Georgia-Pacific.

The new binge ads come as advertisers are increasingly seeking ways to reach customers in a way that doesn't annoy them. Ads that tie into content or that show a story across commercial breaks have seen some success take Procter & Gamble's widely applauded "It's a Tide Ad" spots during the 2018 Super Bowl, which continued through ad placements throughout the game.

Hulu will use data on viewers to predict when they're likely to begin binge-watching a show, which it defines as watching three or more episodes at a time. The platform will serve "contextually relevant messaging from our brand partners that acknowledges a binge watching session has begun."

For instance, an example ad for Cheez-It Snap'd snacks reads, "Another episode? Snack it to me!" and one from Sparkle says "The dishes can (probably) wait. More TV!"

Once a viewer reaches a third episode, an message will reveal that the next episode will be ad-free (this message could be "presented by Sparkle," for example) or will give the viewer a unique offer from a brand, like $1 off a bag of a certain variety of Cheez-Its.

Hulu started in 2007 as joint-venture among several major media companies, but is now majority-owned by Disney. In May, minority owner Comcast handed over its operational control to Disney, and signed a deal that would let it sell its 33% stake to Disney by 2024.

Disclosure: Comcast owns NBCUniversal, the parent company of CNBC.

Read this article:
Hulu debuts a new type of ad that will reward binge-watchers - CNBC

Tunisia's election commission announcing results of the second round of the presidential poll on October 14, 2019. Photo by the election body [Public Domain].

In spite of a generally low youth voter turnout, the increase in youth participation in the second round of presidential elections reignited the debate over the influence of the internet, and particularly social media, in the outcome.

In the months leading up to the elections, mis- and disinformation spread widely across social media platforms, on Facebook in particular. Observers of the political scene noted the rise of political party- and candidate-affiliated Facebook groups and pages with substantial numbers of followers. Pages without stated ties or affiliations were also actively involved in spreading political disinformation and sponsored content praising certain parties and candidates.

Civil society groups, tech platforms, national institutions, and media professionals all adopted measures to counter the spread of mis- and disinformation during the electoral period. However, in light of the lack of transparency on the part of tech platforms, and the legal void surrounding the regulation of political ads on social media, these measures proved insufficient.

On September 2, the start date of the presidential election campaign, Access Now, along with 14 local civil society groups addressed an open letter to Facebook, asking the company to implement effective measures for transparency and accountability towards [its] users in the context of the upcoming Tunisian elections.

The letters signatories called on Facebook to take measures to allow voters to understand how political actors are using Facebook to influence election outcomes, including by allowing public access to information about the number of ads sponsored, the amount of money spent on each ad campaign, the demographics of the targeted audience, and enforcing an ad authorization process on political advertisers.

Coordinated inauthentic activities targeting Tunisia on Facebook

On October 3rd, Facebook announced the removal of 163 Facebook accounts, 51 Pages, 33 Groups and 4 Instagram accounts that were involved in coordinated inauthentic behavior originating from Egypt targeting ten countries including Tunisia. This is the third time this year that Facebook removes accounts involved in inauthentic behavior targeting Tunisia. In May of this year, a press release announced the removal of accounts responsible for similar activity originated from Israel. In January, the company removed 783 Pages, groups and accounts for engaging in coordinated inauthentic behavior tied to Iran targeting multiple countries including Tunisia.

Following the elections, Facebook responded to the open letter, stating that they have taken measures globally and in the MENA region to fight against misinformation, combat hate speech, and prevent foreign interference, AccessNow told Global Voices.

The company also said they had introduced a new authorization process for political and election-related ads in over 140 countries and territories, including Tunisia, and had made its ad library available in a number of countries outside the EU and North America, including Tunisia.

However, these measures are still not providing voters with sufficient information for them to understand who is trying to influence them and make informed decisions. This lack of transparency also makes it harder for national institutions to oversee political ad spending.

The level of information granularity provided to users appears to depend in which country the ad is running, reported a Privacy International analysis published in October 2019.

Facebook says that political ads are archived in its Ad library for seven years. However, Global Voices reviewed the ad libraries of three Facebook pages created in early September, at the start of the first round of the presidential election. These unofficial Facebook pages are a subset of the many that supported then-presidential candidates Abdelfattah Mourou, Salma Elloumi and Abdelkarim Zbidi, and they all ran political ads during the campaign. There are many other pages that supported the 23 other candidates that ran in the presidential election.

Today, the ad libraries of these three pages do not list any of their previous political ads.

This unofficial page supporting then-presidential candidate Abdelfattah Mourou ran political ads when campaigning for the first round of the presidential poll started in September. Screenshot taken and published on Twitter on September 6 by Mona Elswah.

Screenshot [taken on December 5] of the Ad Library of the above-mentioned Facebook page supporting Mourou. The library shows no record of the political ads posted during the presidential campaign.

The Ad Library that Facebook has built failed to provide any measures of transparency, and has only been functioning on a few pages. Ad Library of Facebook only shows the current running ads, but no details would be found on any of the previous/ non-current running ads, or even on any of those pages that have been taking down or its content.

This unofficial page supporting then-presidential candidate Salma Elloumi ran political ads when campaigning for the first round of the presidential poll started in September. Screenshot taken and published on Twitter on September 6 by Mona Elswah.

Screenshot [taken on December 5] of the Ad Library of the above-mentioned Facebook page supporting Elloumi. The library shows no record of the political ads posted during the presidential campaign.

The use of sponsored posts on Facebook also drew the scrutiny of the Independent High Authority for the Elections (ISIE). Nabil Baffoun, ISIEs president, pointed out in a press interview on October 7 that during an electoral campaign, the authority takes into account presidential candidates social media advertisements. Electoral campaigns and their financing are subject to the provisions of the Tunisian Electoral Law. In particular, Baffoun confirmed that sponsored pages appearing during the election campaign fall within the scope of Article 143 of the electoral law, which allows the ISIE and the Court of Auditors to impose sanctions for electoral violations, such as exceeding the spending limit and breaches of electoral silence.

In fact, on October 9, ISIE announced the cancellation of a portion of the votes obtained by the candidate of an electoral constituency representing the Tunisian diaspora in France, for breaching electoral silence through political advertisements on Facebook. The commission said that the candidate of 3ich Tounsi, a registered non-profit organisation that filed non-partisan electoral lists during the elections, obtained 207 votes as a result of this advertisement, directly impacting the electoral results in the constituency. No further explanation was given by the ISIE as to how this assessment was made.

This decision was criticized by candidates of the electoral list in question. The Tunisian Association for the Integrity and Democracy of Elections (ATIDE) also called for the electoral commission to adopt transparent measures by publishing its reports monitoring the use of Facebook in relation to the elections. ATIDE also called on the newly elected parliament to put in place a decisive and comprehensive legal framework on social media advertising during the elections.

A journalist reporting from a polling station on Election Day on October 13, 2019. Photo by the election body [public domain].

In August, the electoral commission (ISIE) and the Independent High Authority for Audiovisual Communication (HAICA), the country's broadcast regulator, issued a joint decision comprising four chapters and 49 articles establishing the rules for media coverage of election campaigns. These required local and foreign broadcast media covering the elections to respect the principles of equal opportunity and equity between candidates. The rules did not apply to electronic media.

In partnership with the Council of Europe, HAICA also hosted capacity-building workshops as part of efforts to help media professionals develop the necessary skills to exercise their role in providing reliable and high-quality information.

Several fact-checking initiatives were also launched.

HAICA, along with the public broadcaster and the Tunisian Press Agency (TAP), launched a fact-checking platform dedicated to exposing misleading information spread online.

Privately-owned digital media websites also launched their own fact-checking initiatives. A few months before the elections, Business News launched BNCheck, a fact-checking platform reporting that continues to operate. Online magazine LEconomiste Maghrbin launched the #FactCheckTNDecides hashtag to verify statements and facts given by presidential candidates during televised presidential dabaes.

During a debate reflecting on LEconomiste Maghrbin's fact-checking experience, journalists highlighted the high financial costs of fact-checking, citing the need for additional recruitment, specialized software and training for journalists.

The relationship between technology, elections, and democracy will develop further in the long term. The spread of disinformation and the rise of foreign interference, among other concerns, have become significant threats for tech companies, national institutions, journalists and voters.

In Tunisia, the shortcomings in the current legislation and the lack of safeguards to prevent future incidents, indicate that cooperation between involved parties and joint efforts to develop countermeasures are crucial in upholding the integrity of elections, and the country's democratic process in general.

This article is part of a series of posts examining interference with digital rights through methods such as shutdowns and disinformation during key political events in seven African countries: Algeria, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Nigeria, Tunisia, Uganda, and Zimbabwe. The project is funded by the Africa Digital Rights Fund of The Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA).

Excerpt from:
Multiple measures failed to control mis- and disinformation in Tunisia's 2019 elections - Global Voices

December 9, 2019

Rent control activists have again submitted signatures to qualify a new initiative for Californias 2020 ballot. The failed 2018 initiative prompted a legislative solution brokered by state lawmakers and the Governor capping rent increases without seemingly derailing apartment investors and owners operating in the state.

That collaborative solution, as Connect Media reported following a Marcus & Millichap rapid response webinar in October, made substantial strides addressing the issue from a common ground approach with Californias multifamily industry representatives. M&Ms Research Director John Chang said at the time that from the fundamental revenue and income producing aspect, the new law generally wont have a huge effect on the majority of assets.

That could change dramatically next year since Californias voter initiative is a plenary power that transcends legislative powers and could erase the brokered solution. Expect industry leaders to analyze potential impacts as Californias Secretary of State verifies signatures.

Read more at Sac Bee

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For comments, questions or concerns, please contact Chris Egger

Tags: Apartments & Multifamily, Politics

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Signatures Submitted to Qualify 2020 California Rent Control Initiative

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Read more from the original source:
Signatures Submitted to Qualify 2020 California Rent Control Initiative - ConnectCRE