As with the past few weeks, the content of the email is best described as Last Week in Facebook, as there continues to be a lot of post-Cambridge Analytica news. But this week, I’m covering off other industry news first:
Industry News
- Congratulations to Spotify who listed on the NYSE. A shout out and thanks to our UM Spotify teams around the world who have contributed to the success of the brand.
- Save the Date! UM is working on plans for Vidcon 2018. Vidcon 2018 is June 20-23
- the Video Advertising Bureau (VAB) an advocacy group covering cable companies and channels, released a study showing the number of US OTT-only households has tripled over the past 5 years.
- Google formally announced and released results for YouTube Truview for Reach. Truview for reach brings CPM buying to YouTube while still providing the user choice of Trueview.
- Snapchat introduced Group Video Calling – supporting up to 16 people. Relevant to advertisers, lenses will still work in video calls.
- positive Facebook news of the week, Facebook received their first MRC accreditation for served impression counting. Consistent measurement and impression counting across media partners is good for clients and the industry.
Facebook News Summary
- Cambridge Analytica: the number of affected Facebook accounts is now at 87MM (up 37MM from original reports).
- Facebook suspended AggregateIQ, a Canadian political consulting firm for alleged links to Cambridge Analytica. AggregateIQ has published a statement denying any relationship to Cambridge Analytica or use of Facebook data.
- Zuckerberg Interview/Q&A: Zuckerberg did an extended interview/Q&A call with journalists covering a range of topics. The full interview transcript is available as is the audio file. I recommend taking the time to read the detail (or listening to it). Highlights include:
- confirmed the 87MM accounts affected by the Cambridge Analytica incident and that this should be the maximum number of accounts exposed.
- expressed broad support for GDPR and making GDPR-like controls available globally. Zuckerberg also made comments earlier in the week to Reuters about supporting GDPR-like principles.
- addressed the topics of fake news, disinformation, and general use of the platform by bad actors and steps being taken to address this problem. Earlier in the week, Facebook also made public statements about the number of Russian-linked Internet Research Agency accounts that it has removed.
- said that no one has been fired as a result of Cambridge Analytica and that the board has not asked for Zuckerberg to step down. Zuckerberg also said he believed he was still the best person to run the company.
- spoke to the leaked Facebook memo about connecting and adding users at any cost and that he disagreed with the memo at the time and now.
- discussed some of the other changes being made at Facebook around privacy, APIs, app auditing, etc.
- Zuckerberg Testimony: Zuckerberg is scheduled to give testimony on Capitol Hill on April 10 and 11 before a joint hearing of the Senate Judiciary and Commerce Committees, followed by one before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The Senate hearing will take place at 2:15 p.m. ET on April 10 and the House hearing at 10 a.m. ET on April 11 (mark your calendars).
- Sheryl Sandberg appeared on the Today Show to both take responsibility for the incident and talk more broadly about the responsibilities Facebook has for users and their data.
- Facebook API Changes: Facebook made a lot of changes to the way the core Facebook API can be used. All of the changes are about stricter privacy settings and limiting the amount of data available and shared. This change temporarily broke tinder. Facebook Login (used by many clients in their own apps and sites) has tighter restrictions in addition to those made last week. Data now no longer shared by Facebook Login includes: religion and political views, relationship status, relationship details, custom friend lists, about me, education history, work history, my website URL, book reading activity, fitness activity, music listening activity, video watch activity, news reading activity, games activity
- Instagram API Changes: Facebook made some immediate changes to the Instagram API. Deprecating a host of API functions from April 4. This change may affect media partners who integrate with Instagram, so check in with partners. This change is notable as the API functions were originally due to sunset in July and December of 2018.
- Updated Data Policy/ Terms of Service (ToS): Facebook published a blog update on the changes, stating it was not asking for new rights but making it clearer. The full Data Policy and Terms of Service are long reads and do explicitly address how advertising, targeting, measurement and advertiser insights work on the platform.
- Bulk App Removal: A new tool now makes it easier for end-users to bulk remove 3rd Party apps. Of note, users will also be able to delete all activity that apps may have posted to their timeline/profile. Apps will still be removed automatically if not used for 3 months (so any clients with apps needs to make sure connected users engage with them regularly).
- 1st/3rd Party Data: Facebook has issued revised legal terms for Custom Audiences (effective May 25th) on how external data can be used on Facebook.
- Zuckerberg posted an update about requiring transparency for political advertising and politically-affiliated pages.
- Facebook issued a product update statement that those who manage pages with a large number of followers will need to be verified. Those that don’t pass verification will not be able to post. This change applies regardless of whether the page has political content.
Have a great week.
Joshua