They fought the law and the law won: A great week for advertising

Opinion

The news from California and New Mexico confirms that the way forward is regulation. The ad industry has always opposed more curbs, but now there is no argument against them, writes Nick Manning.

We don’t get good news every week, so we were spoiled last week by events that should, in time, be favourable to advertising.

Juries in California and New Mexico ruled that Meta and Google had acted in ways that harmed young users of their platforms.

They were found to have negligently enabled social media addiction and child exploitation.

Separately, the platform formerly known as Twitter lost its case against the WFA and some advertisers over alleged collusion via the Global Alliance for Responsible Media.

The latter outcome should not surprise us, yet we live in an Alice-in-Wonderland world.

It has been tempting at times to disbelieve Martin Luther King when he said that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice”, but there is now a glimmer of light.

The good, the bad, and river pollutants

It has been apparent for some time that new legislation is required to curb the activities of the hegemonic US platforms, despite the political cover they now enjoy.

The EU has led the way with the Digital Markets Act, the Digital Services Act, and GDPR, while the UK has also acted, notably with the Online Safety Act and the Data (Use and Access) Act of 2025.

Further legislation and political action are both necessary.

It’s time for governments to curb the domination of global media barons

All good stuff, but you will have also noticed lots of ‘bad stuff’ still plastered over these platforms.

What last week’s news confirms is that the way forward is more regulation. Traditionally, the advertising industry and its representatives opposed new curbs, but now there is no argument against them.

One reason is that the advertising industry is no longer the dominant player in the advertising market. The public sees and hears more advertising that is not mediated through the established channels, which have checks and balances such as the ASA.

People are seeing a lot more unregulated advertising and scams on platforms that aren’t held responsible for them and don’t require copy approval.

It is well known that ad fraud is rampant, and AI is only making it worse. Juniper Research predicts that ad fraud will grow 100% by 2028.

The consumer needs to be protected, but so do advertisers, and the advertising industry will need to increase its efforts to achieve the latter via legislation. It should push for all UK publishers and platforms to declare their proceeds from crime, for example.

This means identifying and naming criminal enterprises that spend money on their platforms. This can only be achieved through legislation.

Recent events have shown that the advertising industry can exercise leverage only to a modest extent through the actions of its constituent members or even its trade bodies.

Rightly, governments put the public first, and the regulation of media channels is what the advertising industry should lobby for.

Advertisers benefit from channels that are benign, don’t carry scams and minimise fraud, so the advertising industry should raise its voice to regulate those platforms that pollute the river.

This would be good news for advertising, as the legislation will force platforms to provide a cleaner, healthier environment in which to advertise.

Human safety and algorithmic ‘car crash’ attention

This is not about ‘brand safety’, of course, because what Danny Donovan of Build Media has described as ‘human safety’ is the thing that matters. Advertisers should actively seek to invest in media vehicles that treat the public with respect, not just avoid abusing them.

It is interesting to speculate on how this may play out in the long term and what it means for advertisers of all sizes. 

We have become used to hearing that ‘social media’ is no longer social, but rather algorithmic platforms that use our signals to show us what we want to see and hear, regardless of our networks.

The bad actors, scamsters and fraudsters rely upon algorithmic ‘car crash’ attention, and this is what needs to be regulated. California and New Mexico show the way.

It probably means less traffic for platforms that carry more of the kind of editorial and ad content that should be regulated out, which would benefit the advertising market.

It would mean less ad revenue flowing to the platforms and more to channels that act responsibly, improving market plurality and protecting the high-quality content that advertising feeds on.

More regulation is the answer to problems for consumers and advertisers, and it is in everyone’s interests to add our voices to the call for it.

The advertising industry will see the downstream benefits when we do.

Nick Manning is the co-founder of Manning Gottlieb Media (now MG OMD) and was chief strategy officer at Ebiquity for over a decade. He now owns a mentoring business, Encyclomedia, which offers strategic advice to companies in the media and advertising industries, and is the non-executive chair of Media Marketing Compliance. He writes for The Media Leader each month.