Frankensteinian Fake News

The media, marketers and agencies are all responsible for the proliferation of fake news that is being devoured by less-than-savvy readers. Now, one industry executive is urging those responsible to help destroy that which they created. In a fiery speech to advertising leaders, the head of the Interactive Advertising Bureau called on marketers, tech firms and agencies to work alongside media companies to fight fake news.


At the online advertising association’s Annual Leadership Meeting today in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., IAB CEO Randall Rothenberg said the industry has no excuse for ignoring its responsibility to improve technology and cut off advertising revenue to websites that publish false and misleading content.


In a 30-minute monologue, Rothenberg—a former tech and politics editors at The New York Times—called on companies ranging from small ad-tech startups to massive juggernauts like Google and Facebook to fix the digital advertising supply chain to make it more difficult for websites to profit off the proliferation of fake news. He said the spread of false information that’s become increasingly a point of contention since the US presidential election is “much worse” than the huckster headlines of past generations.


“As the child of clickbait and the grandson of the direct-mail scams pioneered in the 1920s, fake news also is another form of the hucksterism with which the ad industry has been associated since its origins in the 19th Century,” he said. “The shocking headlines. The wild over-promise and under-delivery. The Barnumesque mendacity.”


The fight against fake news—which Rothenberg said represents a “moral failure” of the advertising industry—has been a key theme across many of the discussions, panels and private conversations happening in Florida this week. He said that if the tech industry can create driverless cars and missions to Mars, fixing fake news shouldn’t be that difficult.


That's a start, but Rothenberg needs to cast a wider net. The ad industry isn't the only business guilty of moral failure. Fake news wouldn't be as widespread if reputable websites weren't so eager to fill their advertising coffers with all of this nonsense.