Remember when this was the next ‘big thing’?

 

buying justice?

Meta and google may have been found liable in Los Angeles and New Mexico for causing harm and failing to protect young people [subject to appeal, of course], but social media platforms seem to have found a way to ensure this doesn't happen elsewhere in the US: vast amounts of cash!

meta, Snap, TikTok and YouTube settled a suit brought by the Kentucky schools district over social media addiction for a total of $27m - eight percent more than the school district's total annual budget. Even if such payments were extrapolated across all 1,300 districts bringing suits against big tech, this would amount to $35 billion. If Meta were liable for a third of that sum [as it was in the Kentucky case, this would equate to roughly one month of the company's operating income. It's easy to buy immunity with infinitely deep pockets.

Private Eye No.1677, June 2026.

influence?

I just watched a video on YouTube in which a bloke went around a number of campervans, giving a short review of each eg price, size, how many berths, shower etc. He offered no opinion other than comments such as 'the kitchen area is rather small' that is; statements of facts. 

In my eyes he was presenting the video ... but he was billed as an influencer.

He didn't influence me ... the facts did. 

Ho hum.

With whom do you agree ?

 

Apple no-entry

When Apple don't want to let you use your [Apple] iPhone to log in to your Apple account. My phone tells me it is running IoS 26.5.

Marketing is more than advertising

I could not access the actual report, so do not know the methodology, but these priorities all seem to focus on advertising - not marketing🤔

just a little accounts question ...

Which one of these do you think would be the best investment for your money?

it's not a bank account

OK, I get security, and I can live with having to access a code on my phone to get into a site, but they're usually four or five digits, not this ...

i agree

'Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 ... exempted online media from responsibilities that every other medium is subject to. In essence it told platforms they could publish virtually anything they wanted without liability. It was unprecedented in the history of the nation.

The fiction that 230 created was that online platforms were not publishers (in fact, they are the largest publishers in the world.) But the fiction has allowed them to accumulate trillions of dollars by publishing lies, porn, deep fakes, hate material, violent material, libels, and mountains of despicable trash without any responsibility or liability.

The judge in Germany ruled that by using their AI systems to produce new content, Google was no longer protected by 230 and were clearly publishers. The court said that displaying third-party links is "search," but having  AI systems create and rewrite information creates new content, and that makes Google legally a publisher.'

Bob Hoffman in his Ad Contrarian Newsletter June 21, 2026.

I've been - happily - with Gmail from the very beginning [when it was Google mail], but getting these ads over my inbox every time I open it up is turning me against it.

 

according to ai ... it's shorter coming back

The result of two searches on Google, both asking how far it is from one place to another but each search being in a different direction.

it's funny 'cos it's true

 

Know your subject

 I find this frustrating. The folk writing this stuff should know that ‘marketing’ and ‘advertising’ are NOT the same thing.

aiding and abetting false advertising?

I was listening to a podcast sponsored by Shopify, and part of the introduction 'ad' the voice over said that - amongst many other things - the service "enhances product photography". I hope they just mean they improve the quality of pictures, because enhancing the product in a picture is illegal.

Just sayin' ...

Google's main income comes from advertising.

Amazon's main income comes from advertising.

and now ...

When Uber started 'Uber Advertising' the company went from a $1.8bn loss to a profit of $1.1bn.