In this week’s Digital Digest, we look at Channel 4’s latest ‘Super Human’ campaign and a House of Lords Committee’s plans for greater cooperation between social media companies and law enforcement.
We then take a look at big tech, with Facebook being accused of failing to combat COVID-19 misinformation and Anne-Marie launching her new album on TikTok.
Closer To Home
Channel 4 aims to provoke with Tokyo 2020 ‘Super Human’ campaign
Channel 4 has released its campaign for the 2020 Paralympic Games, focusing on the daily struggles facing elite athletes as they fight to make it to Tokyo.
This is the third iteration of the Superhumans campaign, which Channel 4 first unveiled ahead of the 2012 Paralympics. Following the success of ‘Meet the Superhumans’, Channel 4 launched its ‘We’re the Superhumans’ campaign to promote its coverage of the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games.
In a first for Channel 4, More 4 will act as a dedicated team sports channel live from Tokyo.
Lords Committee calls for social media companies to fund police to capture online trolls
The Lords’ Communications and Digital committee issued a warning to the Government that the coming Duty of Care laws could usher in a ‘wave of censorship’ if tech companies are ordered to take down too much content deemed harmful, even if it is technically legal.
The committee has called for a ‘polluter pays’ levy that would see social networks like Twitter and Facebook providing funding to the police in an effort to catch online trolls. They also called for a legal requirement to force social media companies to preserve deleted posts for a period of time that helps officers investigating crimes being committed on social media.
Big Tech
Facebook in the spotlight as experts say vaccine misinformation remains rampant on the platform
Facebook is under fire once again over the proliferation of vaccine misinformation on its platform. This comes after Joe Biden said tech giants such as Facebook are “killing people” for failing to tackle the problem.
Experts say these posts are particularly prevalent on Spanish-language Facebook – an area of the platform Facebook is accused of not devoting enough resources to moderating.
Biden’s stark condemnation comes as Covid-19 vaccine uptake is plateauing in the US and new cases are once more on the rise.
Anne-Marie debuts her new album as a series of TikTok clips
Musicians have long debuted tracks as clips on TikTok ahead of their official release, but singer Anne-Marie has gone a step further and made her entire new album available for TikTokers to use.
Ahead of the album launch on Friday, clips of all the tracks from the album were released on TikTok.
This shows how TikTok’s partnerships with labels is evolving, to the point where dropping clips for fans to use a few days ahead of release is becoming an increasingly common marketing tactic.
Also In The News
110 brands, including Mars, KFC and GSK, have signed an open letter condemning Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat’s “lack of adequate action” in response to the racist abuse suffered by members of the England football team.
Good-Loop has launched an ad tracker, Green Ad Tag, to monitor the carbon cost of digital campaigns, detecting data transmission in real-time with a number of variations.
Netflix’s loss of domestic subscribers has prompted the streaming giant to focus on other ways of increasing user interaction, including a video game expansion riding off the success of its interactive show Black Mirror Bandersnatch and Stranger Things game.
Ampersand is looking to expand its operations in partnership with LiveRamp. The partnership aims to ‘democratise’ the way TV is planned and will allow marketers to create custom audiences.
The UK’s (embarrassingly slow) broadband speed could become 400 times faster with the next generation of broadband pioneered by BT-owned Openreach and Nokia.
West Ham fans have taken to Twitter to rejoice in the rumoured signing of Italian national team member Domenico Berardi to the football club, which would bring a much-needed quality and experienced forward to the team.
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