Why don't the companies running social networking sites that make money from ads posted on their social media bear full responsibility for the content of the ads posted and for the financial, social, moral and other damages caused by ads that are not properly verified?
In today's most popular online social media, there have recently been many untrustworthy advertisements for various products and services, including misleading ads presenting false, unreliable, fraudulent offers of pseudo financial services. Often beginners or experienced influencers and youtubers play the role of presenting certain offers. Sometimes the people presenting certain untrustworthy offers of products or services are seemingly random people who, seemingly as mere citizens of the Internet who want to share their experiences of using various offers, presenting mainly or exclusively positive aspects of using certain presented products and services in reality are paid by the companies whose offers they present. Sometimes influencers and youtubers are given ownership of a specific advertised product for free as a form of gratification. In addition, artificial intelligence technology is increasingly being used to create advertising spots broadcast on social media. Individuals and companies using generative artificial intelligence technology, including applications based on AI technology available for free on the Internet to create advertising spots are taking advantage of legal loopholes, i.e. the lack of legal regulations that would normalize this sphere of the use of AI technology and limit the scale of misinformation, generation of fejknews, untrustworthy advertisements presenting various product and service offers using misleading content to the public that is inconsistent with facts, unverified using reliable, objective expert knowledge, scientific research conducted, etc. In addition, in AI-generated spots, animations and advertising videos, more and more often, instead of human influencers and youtubers, there are replacing them with a kind of avatars, digitally generated people who do not exist in reality. It happens that digitally generated images of real existing public figures of politicians, athletes, showbiz people, actors, singers, etc. are used in unreliably generated spots, animations and advertising videos, into whose mouths are put statements, texts, words that in reality they have never spoken. Recently, more and more often in the online social media, in which there are certain segments, generations of Internet users, citizens, there are many unreliable, taking advantage of the low level of knowledge in the field, offers of pseudo financial services, offers of supposedly super easy and highly profitable investments in cryptocurrencies, in miraculous investment strategies in Bitcoin requiring virtually no knowledge of finance, extra unique investment offers in precious metals, in contracts on selected securities, shares of dynamically growing startups basing their development on artificial intelligence technology, conducting innovative research projects with the aim of creating a miracle cure for cancer or other difficult-to-treat or incurable diseases. Public organizations and institutions representing the interests of consumer citizens, dealing with the issue of consumer protection and competition, investigating the problem of unreliable and misleading citizens presented in social media spots, animations, advertising videos, NGOs and socially active organizations are trying to warn citizens against such unreliable, fraudulent, false content ads. However, the main role in protecting citizens acting as consumers of information should be played by the technology companies running the aforementioned online social media. Leading online technology companies running popular social media sites are developing new technologies and are most equipped with modern ICT, Industry 4.0/5.0 technologies, and are therefore most predisposed to create reliably effective systems for verifying the content used in advertising campaigns run on their social media. This is because there is a lack of legal regulations in the legal normatives that would oblige the companies running social networks earning money from the advertisements posted to verify the content used in the advertisements, to check the issue of compliance of the content of the advertisements with the facts, with the generally applicable expert knowledge, with the results of scientific research conducted, and to make the said technology companies fully responsible for the content of the advertisements posted in their social media and for the financial, social, moral and other damages caused by the advertisements not properly verified. Besides, in addition to the necessary legal regulations, there should be a system of mandatory insurance fund financed by the said technology companies, from which compensation would be paid for all the negative effects caused by the broadcast on social media of fake news, misleading product and service offers, unreliable influencers, youtubers, advertising companies, etc. An additional solution that should be introduced is the possibility of legal enforcement of financial claims on the aforementioned insurance funds from unreliable influencers, youtubers, advertising companies, etc.
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In view of the above, I address the following question to the esteemed community of scientists and researchers:
Why don't the companies running social networks that make money from the ads posted on their social media bear full responsibility for the content of the ads posted and for the financial, social, moral and other damages caused by ads that are not properly verified?
Why don't the companies running social media sites bear full responsibility for the content of unreliable ads posted?
What do you think about this topic?
What is your opinion on this issue?
Please answer,
I invite everyone to join the discussion,
Thank you very much,
Best wishes,
Dariusz Prokopowicz
The above text is entirely my own work written by me on the basis of my research.
In writing this text I did not use other sources or automatic text generation systems.
Copyright by Dariusz Prokopowicz
1/ - The answer to the main question is in the first sentence - companies that make money on advertising are materially interested in having as many ads as possible. Therefore, any verification of ads is not in their interest.
2/ - How do you imagine verifying the reliability of advertisements? If you do it really seriously, it may turn out that no ad will pass the reliability test. The essence of advertising is to persuade people to behave in a certain way, make decisions, make choices, make purchases, conclude contracts, etc. Advertising typically uses manipulation, at least by exposing the advantages and omitting the disadvantages of products, services, investment offers... etc. Expecting reliability from advertisements is at least naive, and making important decisions based on them without verification on your own is stupid.
3/ - AI is a threat because it raises the possibilities of manipulation to a higher level. But the possibilities of manipulation themselves have existed for a very long time - only the technical means of their implementation and propagation are changing. Without questioning the validity of attempts to legally regulate this phenomenon, I am afraid that without appropriate education these regulations will be ineffective. Ultimately, AI will certainly be a cheaper solution than corrupting the so-called influencers. There remains the issue of distinguishing real people from artificially generated personas. This problem has also existed for years, for example in the form of troll farms used in commercial activities, in political marketing, as well as for the manipulation of social moods and information and psychological operations, which we can beyond any doubt qualify as an element of hybrid warfare. AI provides new technical possibilities, but the phenomenon itself is not new.
4/ - The idea of compensation requires consideration of the scope of liability. Compensations may be counterproductive. People protected by the possibility of obtaining compensation may become less careful and prudent and make more risky decisions in hopes of compensating for possible negative consequences. The experience of numerous frauds and financial pyramids shows that people who are eager to look for easy profits are also eager to look outside for those who are guilty and responsible for their own mistakes. I believe that reinforcing such attitudes by shifting responsibility for wrong decisions to other entities is at least risky.
5/ - I see no chance for practical verification of the compliance of advertisements with scientific knowledge. The essence of advertising is a large dose of creativity aimed at giving the recipient specific impressions and emotions. Ultimately, the introduction of such regulations may end in questioning the image of a purple cow in the "Milka" advertisement, because there are no such cows, while the authors of the most perfidious advertisements will probably make every effort to maintain formal compliance with such regulations. When you order a service and you are not satisfied with its performance, you can easily verify whether the contractor simply did something wrong or wanted to cheat you. An honest contractor will try to solve the problem himself, while a fraudster will be so well prepared and legally protected that it may be unprofitable to get him to acknowledge the complaint. If someone intends to act dishonestly, they usually prepare well for it and take care to minimize legal risk. Therefore, I expect exactly the same with regard to possible regulations regarding advertising accuracy.
6/ - To sum up, I believe that trying to solve the problem using legal methods will not be effective. We must take into account great resistance from groups that earn a lot of money from this type of advertising, accusations of introducing censorship and limiting freedom of speech, as well as undesirable side effects. For example, attempts to combat disinformation and conspiracy theories by legal means may add media coverage and contribute to their popularization. It may also turn out that the introduced provisions will actually become the basis for limiting freedom of speech by, at least temporarily, blocking publications that are inconvenient for the authorities and do not necessarily have the nature of advertising content. Therefore, I believe that education related to this type of threats, developing critical thinking skills and verification of sources, as well as reliable economic and social education as an element of protection against manipulation and belief in easy profits or simple solutions to complex problems are much more important.
There are several reasons why companies running social media sites may not take full responsibility for the content of unreliable ads posted on their platforms:
While social media companies have taken steps to address issues related to misinformation and unreliable content, the complex nature of the problem and the various factors at play make it challenging for them to fully assume responsibility for every ad posted on their platforms.