What to Expect Between Now and November 3rd
Things are getting heated on the Internet.
I'm not sure if you've noticed, but there's a pretty major political event coming up down South, and that means every digital platform is on high alert.
Four years ago the tech community took a lot of heat for its role in election interference and misinformation campaigns. This time around, all of the big ones are taking defensive measures, many of which will impact the way that everyone interacts.
When we started The Brief one of our original goals was to make sure our clients were never surprised by a big digital shift, so this week I've pulled together the biggest changes that we'll all be impacted by over the next three weeks (or more):
Digital Shift: What To Expect
FACEBOOK/INSTAGRAM
This one has received the greatest amount of attention, largely because it's the most broadly used platform for political campaigns.
First, there will be no political ads allowed on the platforms in the final week before the election. Of course, that's meant to apply to the US election only, but we all know how arbitrary the Facebook ads rules can be applied, so expect more of your ads to get rejected for vague reasons.
It's going beyond ads, and Facebook says that it will be monitoring organic content for "posts that try to dissuade people from voting". It's not clear what that standard is or how it will be applied, so expect to see organic posts here and there incorrectly marked, or blocked.
It seems too timely to be a coincidence that, just this morning, Facebook reversed its long-held stance that Holocaust-denying content and groups should be allowed. In an announcement, Zuckerberg said that his "thinking has evolved" and that it would no longer be allowed given new evidence about the growth of antisemitism in America.
The paid and organic restrictions will apply broadly across Facebook, Instagram, and the other Zuckerberg-controlled properties, so don't be surprised if you see a lot of confused people trying to figure out why their content was taken down on several platforms.
The team at Google acknowledged that, unlike social media, search results are often seen as a source of objective truth. When people Google something, they expect to receive answers, not opinions. In order to try to protect that idea, Google is making several adjustments.
When it comes to breaking news, they're assigning dedicated teams to monitor minute-by-minute results to filter out hateful, offensive, or misleading information.
They're adding fact check labels to all search results, including Images and News, to help people interpret false or misleading sites before they click.
And finally, Autocomplete is getting some new restrictions, where Google will no longer offer predictions that could be interpreted as claims for or against any candidate.
Jack Dorsey and his team may be introducing the most sweeping changes, in that they will affect the way we all share content.
They're starting with retweets — everyone who clicks to retweet will now be prompted to add their own commentary rather than blankly distributing that content. Accounts with more than 100k followers will receive increased monitoring, and any tweets that get labelled as "misleading" will be hidden behind a warning and will no longer be able to receive likes or retweets.
Twitter was early to ban any political advertising, so they don't need to make any changes in their ads department, but if anyone makes a proclamation of victory in any election before an official announcement, then that tweet will get flagged and users will be redirected to a voter information page.
Taken individually, most of these updates won't affect our day-to-day operations, but all together they are going to create a feeling of a more restrictive Internet, at least for the next few weeks. Change, in whatever form, can make people feel uncomfortable, so have patience because you're likely going to need to re-submit some rejected ads, you may get some posts taken down, and there will likely be some fluctuations in organic search traffic.
If 2020 has taught us anything so far, it's that we have no choice but to get comfortable with change.
Written by Conner Galway, Junction Consulting