It was a cold Wednesday afternoon when I got the message about a broadcast on over 2 million inappropriate channels. It was a link to news of the country's largest media outlet.

We had spent two long weeks embracing the theme Sleeping Giants Brazil. Long calls to debate with advertisers, vehicles and partners. Review of brand safety policies, double check in all configurations. Those were intense weeks.

Come to think of it, how could Fake News CPMI have detected such a large list of inappropriate "CHANNELS" in such a short time? Two million sites would take months to evaluate.

As I entered the news, I realized it was a fake news. The WhatsApp message came with a different title to the story. The renowned vehicle itself used a friendly fake URL. But why not be controversial and generate more hits? How many additional shares would be generated? Actually, the 2 million sites would only be 2 million impressions.

With all due respect, 2 million impressions is not enough. So little we buy per thousand using CPM as a metric. Looking at Google's DSP we have access to the entire Brazilian internet, i.e., almost 80% of the population. Look at the potential of this: the democratization of media buying and selling. There are practically no more barriers between who buys and who sells advertising. According to CENP Meios, in 2019 we surpassed R$ 2.4 billion in digital display and videos in the country, where most of them run in this modality.

The mechanics created by Sleeping Giants to demonetize a site at a time is simply genius. They leave advertisers and agencies completely exposed without any respect to the work of media professionals. At first nobody wanted to be involved. Whether it's pausing campaigns, trying to understand the theme or simply denying websites. After all, all that noise was when denouncing only 3 sites.

We need to get used to the theme. On American soil the initiative is almost four years old and should not stop so soon. In Brazil, in less than a month we already have almost 100 advertisers supporting and withdrawing their ads against few who have not responded so far.

The discussion should evolve about the criteria used to classify a vehicle as fake. Not simply in being "suffocated" by reports of a newly created Twitter profile. I still don't see the advertising market involved in this issue. Initiatives like the Global Disinformation Index, the International Fact-Checking Network or the Brazilian verification agency Lupa should have our professionals involved.

In fact, if there was technology ready to decide if the content of that page is fake news the choice would be simple. We could advertise or not with a simple click. The giants of technology should accelerate their efforts to sophisticate their platforms and natively support new control mechanisms. It's not about classifying an entire domain as fake news, but rather not to broadcast when the content of the page exceeds a risk determined by the advertiser. We already have technology partners that can be connected to assist in this process. But this requires expertise and much discussion between the parties for the correct parameterization.

The subject is serious. As a great friend says, we are seeing for the first time "concrete, organized and structured manifestations against the algorithms". The technological revolution of advertising is a fact. Large technology companies need to give transparency in how their algorithms work. GDPR and LGPD are moving in exactly this direction.

Advertisers and agencies need to review their Brand Safety policies. We must not stop the discussion on display networks. For the most part, aren't we negating the social or video networks that sponsor a hate speech? It is important to evolve as an industry and build the digital audience into an even better product.

We must urgently build a digital quality seal. A kind of ISO. It is not of today that we work with initiatives like Clean Supply or SPO (supply path optimization) that aim to ensure quality and a shorter purchase path with greater value to the ecosystem. We need to treat initiatives like these with the protagonism they deserve.

Article originally published at: https://propmark.com.br/opiniao/protagonismo-no-combate-as-fake-news/