As the negative stories pile up around Facebook, Mat Baxter, global CEO of media agency Initiative, has called for real action from marketers.”It’s about time we take a collective stand against the egregious behaviour of Facebook,” he posted to Linkedin Wednesday. “Every time these sorts of stories surface they assure us that they are “trying harder”… enough is enough. I will be advising clients to stay off the platform entirely – hopefully, when they feel the pain of lost advertising dollars things might just change.” He linked to a Business Insider story following a New York Times story from Tuesday, which revealed that Facebook gave some businesses—like Microsoft, Netflix, Spotify and the Royal Bank of Canada—large amounts of user data (RBC denied having access to Facebook users messages).
Home Alone (again)…but this time with Google Assistant
Google hit the sweet spot for many nostalgic millennials Wednesday, with a video ad that reimagines Home Alone for modern times. In the spot, rather than blow torches and swinging buckets of paint, Kevin McCallister—still played by the now 38-year-old Macaulay Culkin—uses his Google Assistant to protect his home from bandits outside.
Huawei transforms books for deaf kids
Huawei says it wants to help deaf children learn to read with the creation of an app that can read children’s books and translate them into sign language. By holding their phone over the words on the page, an avatar named Star signs the story as the words are highlighted. The free app is only available for Android, and there’s just one book at launch, Where’s Spot. FCB Inferno London created the app and this ad to promote the app in the U.K.
Amnesty study underscores Twitter abuse of women
One in ten tweets mentioning black women politicians and journalists was abusive or problematic, according to Amnesty International. The human rights organization has released a ground-breaking study into abuse against women on Twitter conducted with Element AI, a global artificial intelligence software product company. Element AI calculated that 1.1 million abusive or problematic tweets were sent to the women in the study across the year – or one every 30 seconds on average.
NAACP calls for Facebook boycott
Add the NAACP to the growing list of people and organizations increasingly displeased with Facebook. The civil rights organization on Wednesday called for a boycott of the social media platform, following revelations that it didn’t do enough to stop the spread of political misinformation in the African-American community in advance of the 2016 presidential election. According to a report on MediaPost, The organization is calling for people and businesses to #LogOut of both Facebook and Instagram for one week. The organization also says that it has returned a recent donation, and wants Congress to further investigate the company. “Facebook’s engagement with partisan firms, its targeting of political opponents, the spread of misinformation and the utilization of Facebook for propaganda promoting disingenuous portrayals of the African American community is reprehensible,” said NAACP president and CEO Derrick Johnson.
New video puts dementia sufferers’ anxiety to verse
The Alzheimer’s Society has released a stirring animated video that gives voice to the worries and fears of people suffering from dementia. “A Christmas message from Ashford’s Dementia peer support group,” in Kent, England, uses a poem created by people suffering from the condition to outline their feelings of doubt and frustration, particularly during the hustle and bustle of the holiday season. According to a report on The Drum, the spot is voiced by UK actor Gary Fairhill, whose mother is suffering from dementia.
