The future of fighting misinformation in Asia-Pacific
The global Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2022 shows that trust in news has declined in almost half the countries surveyed, and more people are actively avoiding the news. Meanwhile, a majority of those surveyed said they worry about identifying the difference between real news and misinformation on the internet.
The Asia Pacific region is no stranger to these trends, and ahead of elections in Malaysia, Thailand, Pakistan, India and Indonesia, the fifth annual APAC Trusted Media Summit, organized by the Google News Initiative (GNI), brought together journalists, fact-checkers, educators, researchers, activists, and policymakers to share best practices for fact-checking and media literacy.
Here are our key takeaways from the event.
Pre-bunk rather than debunk.
Researchers at the University of Cambridge found that short “prebunking” videos, rolled out as ads on social media, are effective at improving people’s ability to spot fake information.
Debunks, on the other hand, typically don’t reach as many people as misinformation, and they don’t spread nearly as quickly— which is why pre-bunking is crucial. Research shows the power of the continued influence effect: once someone is exposed to misinformation, it’s significantly more difficult to return their beliefs to a baseline similar to that of someone who was never exposed to it in the first place.
Remember that people react emotion-first.
Dr. Michelle Wong, Content Creator at Lab Muffin Beauty Science, has been debunking misinformation around online beauty products for 11 years. She says that with people’s short attention spans, garnering the same level of interest in true stories as misinformation means that social media content has to have two things: a compelling hook, and an easy-to-understand explanation.
Dr. Wong reminded us that misinformation spreads faster online because most of the content taps into powerful emotions like fear— which affect viewers more than complex science does. Using the same tactic for debunking can help reach (and inform!) a much broader audience.
Coalition building and empowering individuals.
Addressing misinformation requires more resources and skills beyond those of any single organization, industry, sector, or government.
As shared by Maria Ressa, Filipino-American journalist, author, co-founder and CEO of Rappler, #FactsFirstPH created a movement ahead of the recent Philippines elections. A coalition of 16 news organizations and 116 civil society groups and businesses came together and built a collective network that pushed the real facts through the algorithm in an enormous ripple effect.
Most importantly, collaboration needs to come from all sectors— from tech companies like Google, to media, governments, fact-checkers and research. Working together, we can build a sustainable, large-scale approach to fighting misinformation.
The way forward for Asia-Pacific.
This year, in its 5th edition, the Trusted Media Summit gathered 1,960 registrants across the globe from 24 countries, representing over 350 organizations in seven languages Attendees and speakers shared ideas and it was truly impressive how this community continues their work year after year to fight misinformation.
Attendees at this year’s event learned how the community can collaborate, work on pre-bunking and adopt influencers’ successful social media strategies. I’m proud of our work that helps bring people together, and I believe that Asia-Pacific can lead the way in building a better, more informed future for all.
If you missed the APAC Trusted Media Summit 2022, we’ve put together on-demand videos from the event here.
Truffe online: come evitarle durante il periodo del Black Friday?
In questo periodo dell’anno le truffe online aumentano drasticamente di numero: ecco alcune precauzioni utili per evitare il peggio.
Leggi Truffe online: come evitarle durante il periodo del Black Friday?
Condividere l’esperienza della realtà virtuale usando solo un iPhone o iPad recente: ci sono anche alternative?
Uno dei difetti della realtà virtuale è che si tratta di un‘esperienza personale, che vista da fuori ha un effetto completamente differente e solitamente abbastanza comico. Vedere una persona che si sbraccia furiosamente con il volto coperto da un visore non è particolarmente coinvolgente. Poter condividere l’esperienza sarebbe sicuramente più interessante.
Esistono soluzioni di cosiddetta mixed reality, che consentono di far vedere a degli spettatori quello che viene visto dall’utente in realtà virtuale inserendo quell’utente nell’ambiente virtuale. Una cosa come questa:
Come si ottiene questo effetto? Secondo il video seguente e queste istruzioni dettagliate, lo si può realizzare usando un iPhone o iPad dotato di processore A12 (per esempio un iPhone XS o SE 2020 o un iPad Pro 2018 o successivi) e un visore Oculus Quest installando l’app di cattura Mixed Reality Capture per Oculus (documentazione qui) e l’app Reality Mixer per iPhone.
Mi piacerebbe provare, ma purtroppo non ho un iPhone recente del genere (ho un Oculus Quest 1 e anche un ampio green screen). Qualcuno ha qualche idea su soluzioni alternative, che usino per esempio un computer (Mac o Windows)?
Android 12L è ora disponibile per Surface Duo e Duo 2
Microsoft ha reso disponibile Android 12L per Surface Duo e Surface Duo 2, il sistema va a creare una forte connessione con Windows 11.
HUB 7 in 1 con interruttori: il prezzo di oggi è semplicemente RIDICOLO
OnePlus Nord 2 5G, l’offerta di oggi per il top di gamma Android è di quelle SLURP
Apple Mac Mini con Chip M1, l’OFFERTA che stavi aspettando è ADESSO
HP ZBook Firefly 14 G9 è il notebook compatto per il professionista della grafica
Riding The Razor’s Edge of AI in B2B Marketing
Where can artificial intelligence (AI) play a genuinely helpful role in B2B marketing efforts, and when does it go too far and become a creative liability for marketers?
AI has increasingly crept into our daily lives, and B2B marketers are facing these and other new questions, confronted with keeping a healthy balance between some of the efficiency and time-saving gains AI can deliver, and running the risk of implementing too much AI and not enough of the human touch.
AI has continued its inevitable refinements from the first online customer service help chatbots to today’s software that ostensibly writes many forms of text, to the ever-more-impressive AI-generated digital images of programs such as DALL-E.
Just how much AI is too much in B2B marketing is a machine learning (ML) spectacle that will play out in 2023 and likely never stop being refined, however B2B marketers today can be prepared by knowing some of the key issues at hand and the right questions to ask.
Let’s take a look at three of the major areas of marketing where AI is increasingly at play, and explore the benefits and risks of machine learning in B2B marketing.
[bctt tweet=”“Just how much AI is too much in B2B marketing is a machine learning spectacle that will play out in 2023 and likely never stop being refined.” — Lane R. Ellis @lanerellis” username=”toprank”]1 — AI Has Come Far, Still Has Limitations
It’s no secret that B2B marketers are more frequently being asked to deliver greater efficiency, as our own senior content marketing manager Nick Nelson recently examined in “B2B Content Marketing: Making Small Budgets Do Big Things,” and in this quest for more efficient work it’s little wonder that AI has had an uptick in usage.
With B2B businesses having moved to a digital-first online strategy over the past several years, marketers have found themselves spending more time producing a wider variety of content than ever before.
“Today’s marketers say they spend a significant amount of their time creating content,” Meghan Bazaman, senior content analyst at Gartner recently observed in “Why AI/ML Is a Game Changer for Content Marketing,” adding that, “In fact, 45 percent spend half of their week doing so.”
Faced with growing content creation demands, AI has presented B2B marketers with options for boosting efficiency.
“AI and ML have already been adopted for other marketing functions,” Bazaman noted. “They are most commonly used in email marketing, advertising and data analytics, but only a third of marketing professionals say they use them for content creation,” she added.
With AI’s inevitable refinements in the coming years, it will undoubtedly be able to tackle more than just the relatively simple and easy-to-read content it excels at today.
“AI/ML has a promising future in marketing. As the technology gets better at emulating human behavior, it will play a larger role as a writing assistant, helping marketers work smarter and more efficiently,” Bazaman suggested.
[bctt tweet=”“AI/ML has a promising future in marketing. As the technology gets better at emulating human behavior, it will play a larger role as a writing assistant, helping marketers work smarter and more efficiently.” — Meghan Bazaman @MeghanBazaman” username=”toprank”]Yet simultaneously, B2B marketers are looking for new ways to personalize content efforts.
Personalized content and offers were listed by global B2B marketers as the top marketing tactic being added in 2022, according to new eMarketer data that Tequia Burt, editor in chief of the LinkedIn* Ads Blog recently explored in, “5 Top Takeaways from eMarketer’s 2022 US B2B Digital Ad Spending Forecast.”
“Emerging digital technologies and tools are giving B2B marketers the ability to find their target audience and personalize content for them more effectively than ever before,” Burt suggested.
[bctt tweet=”“Emerging digital technologies and tools are giving B2B marketers the ability to find their target audience and personalize content for them more effectively than ever before.” — Tequia Burt @TequiaBurt” username=”toprank”]While AI can automate the creation of some level of the personalized content B2B marketers are seeking to deliver, it’s important to know when AI personalization can become tone deaf.
AI is also fundamentally unable to deliver when it comes to another area today’s B2B professionals are seeking — real, human-powered insight on current trends.
64 percent of business executives have said they prefer thought leadership content with “a more human, less formal tone of voice,” according to LinkedIn and Edelman’s latest B2B Thought Leadership Impact Study.
Let’s take a look at three of the primary areas where AI is playing an increasingly important role in B2B marketing, working from the most straightforward to the most complicated.
2 — From Turing’s ELIZA To The Modern Chatbot
Alan Turing’s 1966 ELIZA was among the first of what today we call chatbots, and they’ve undoubtedly progressed in complexity every year since.
I’ll never forget my first time using an AI-infused chatbot program around 1985 — not because of the initial half hour or so spent interacting with the ELIZA-based Commodore 64 software, but from continuing that conversation some 20 years later.
Around 2005 I converted my old collection of Commodore 64 5.25-inch floppy disks into files that can be used with modern emulation programs, and came across my long-forgotten chatbot disk. Once converted, I booted up the program and was instantly transported back to 1985, as the chatbot picked up just where I’d left off so long ago, asking me if I’d had a good time playing basketball — the last thing I’d mentioned during our previous chat. I felt oddly sorry for the chatbot, having had to wait so long to continue our conversation, and was happy to have picked it up again.
Since then chatbots have progressed by leaps and bounds, and more B2B brands have been offering them among customer support options in recent years.
According to one recently-publishing survey, among small and midsize businesses, 97 percent have said that AI tools reduce the time they spend on marketing tasks, and 92 percent said that AI tools led to decreased costs.
Just how quickly are AI-powered marketing tools proving helpful to businesses? The same survey found that over 80 percent of marketing decision-makers believe that AI marketing tools will have a positive impact on their business over the next two to three years or sooner.
Chatbots are just one of the AI-infused technologies that are being used by B2B brands, so let’s look at a few more.
3 — AI-Concocted Images Fascinate & Face Copyright Concerns
A rising number of B2B marketers have been testing the waters with AI-powered image generation applications including DALL-E, Jasper.ai, Meta AI’s Make-A-Scene, Stability AI, and others that are making waves by turning plain text descriptions of anything imaginable into digital images.
DALL-E — which bills itself as “your creative copilot,” uses machine learning models to not only create images from natural language descriptions but to alter and re-create existing images.
Jasper.ai — which bills itself as a top AI content platform for business, offers an array of social media content generation features from image creation to written content, which we’ll look at separately in a moment.
The slightly disconcerting images created by these and similar AI-based programs have been increasingly popping up in our social media feeds, and they point to a fascinating road ahead as their use in B2B marketing finds a niche.
As an example of the current state of AI-based image generation, I asked DALL-E to make images showing, “A group of B2B marketing professional business-people attending a networking conference event,” and among the four images it provided after a short wait, one — the only image not showing a face, tellingly — could likely work in certain B2B marketing campaigns. The others — not so much.
As the technology rolls ever along, the images these tools create will only improve and become less off-putting, however even today their use has raised concerns in several areas — from fundamental questions of what is genuine and what isn’t, to copyright concerns and more.
Last month stock photography giant Getty Images announced that it was taking a stand against AI-generated imagery, due to the unsettled nature of the various copyright laws that protect stock photos and the artists who created them.
“There are real concerns with respect to the copyright of outputs from these models and unaddressed rights issues with respect to the imagery, the image metadata and those individuals contained within the imagery,” Craig Peters, chief executive at Getty Images, explained.
[bctt tweet=”“There are real concerns with respect to the copyright of outputs from these models and unaddressed rights issues with respect to the imagery, the image metadata and those individuals contained within the imagery.” Craig Peters @GettyImages” username=”toprank”]Another player in the stock photography business has taken quite a different approach to AI-generated images, as Shutterstock recently announced an expanded partnership with OpenAI — the AI research organization founded in part by Elon Musk — that will see Shutterstock offering AI image generation from natural language text prompts.
The expanded Shutterstock partnership with OpenAI will use the DALL-E application programming interface (API), and even allow its users to manipulate certain existing images within its vast database, while also implementing a new framework to provide compensation to those photographers and artists who have played a part in helping develop the AI models.
As has been the case with numerous area of technology, legislation lags behind today’s swift progress in AI-generated images, and much remains to be clarified when it comes to copyright, the use of training AI image generation programs with millions of existing images taken by real photographers, and deeper questions about authenticity in marketing and life.
The AI-powered video creation industry has also seen growth — although not as established as the still image market, and is likely to be another area that sees increased usage among B2B marketers and other digital creators in 2023.
4 — AI Copy-Writing Tools For B2B Content Creation
While more B2B marketers than ever have turned to testing or implementing AI-based software to write content, several serious hurdles remain. Notably, the public’s perception and trust of the advertising and public relations industry has fallen to new lows according to one recent Gallup poll.
A scant 26 percent of U.S. adults see PR and advertising in a somewhat or very position light, bottoming out even more than the previous low of 27 percent in 2008, with net-positive ratings now even lower than during 2003’s previous record low.
In light of this, B2B marketers need to ask themselves whether increasing the use of AI-powered technology will help or hurt the public’s all-time-low perception of the marketing industry — and no area runs a greater risk than when it comes to writing.
[bctt tweet=”“B2B marketers need to ask themselves whether increasing the use of AI-powered technology will help or hurt the public’s all-time-low perception of the marketing industry.” — Lane R. Ellis @lanerellis” username=”toprank”]B2B marketers have already had to walk a razor’s edge when it comes to the use of AI, however that doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of areas where AI can be used successfully, including writing with the assistance of tools such as ContentBot and Jasper.ai.
As with AI-generated images, writing generated by AI copy-writing tools face both audience acceptance and legal issues.
Questions remain, such as when a piece of writing reaches a certain threshold percentage of content created by AI, does it need to be disclosed to the reader? If — or more likely, when — AI copy-writing tools are able to progress to the point where they can take more humans out of the marketing loop, is that always a good thing, or are there serious risks that threaten the very heart of what marketing is.
5 — Riding the Razor’s Edge of AI in B2B Marketing
Whether using AI-powered chatbots, machine-learning-powered image, video, and copy-writing tools — or a mixture of them all — today’s B2B marketers live in an interesting and foundational time, and in a digital landscape that is certain to look vastly different in just a few short years.
Careful and considered implementation of AI-powered technologies can pay dividends for savvy B2B marketers and become part of a modern digital-first super-stack of marketing technology skills, and we hope that some of the AI information we’ve explored here will help your own efforts as we push ahead into 2023 and beyond.
More than ever before, creating award-winning B2B marketing that elevates, gives voice to talent, and humanizes with authenticity takes considerable time and effort, which is why more brands are choosing to work with a top digital marketing agency such as TopRank Marketing. Reach out to learn how we can help, as we’ve done for over 20 years for businesses ranging from LinkedIn, Dell and 3M to Adobe, Oracle, monday.com and many others.
* LinkedIn is a TopRank Marketing client.
The post Riding The Razor’s Edge of AI in B2B Marketing appeared first on B2B Marketing Blog – TopRank®.
Cacciavite elettrico 20 in 1: un kit di strumenti completo a prezzo imbarazzante
Nero come la tempesta, Google Pixel 6 è scontato oggi di quasi 200€ su Amazon
iPad 10 con design all-screen e chip A14 in vendita su Amazon: spedizioni immediate
Logitech K380, l’elegante tastiera per Windows, Android e iOS: che affare
Motorola Edge 30 Pro: il top di gamma Android mai così conveniente
In Madrid, a pitch for “open security”
The following is adapted from remarks delivered by Kent Walker, President of Global Affairs, at the “Google Cybersecurity Summit: Protecting Europe’s Digital Space” in Madridon October 26, 2022.
Today’s cybersecurity discussion couldn’t be more timely.
Against a backdrop of rising geo-political tensions, we are seeing more and more efforts to undercut our shared security.
Cyber and information wars have become tools of the trade in attempts to exploit our vulnerabilities and destabilize our economies and our democracies.
It is no wonder that when the European Commission unveiled its plan for Europe’s digital transformation by 2030, it called security a fundamental right central to its vision.
So where do we begin the task of securing the digital world?
On the one hand, some would embrace data localization requirements, limits on market access, and even restrictions to accessing some cross-border services.
Essentially walled gardens and high fortresses. But we would suggest a different tack.
Though it sounds like a paradox, the best modern digital security actually comes through embracing openness.
Though it sounds like a paradox, the best modern digital security actually comes through embracing openness.
That’s because in today’s mobile, hybrid environment, cybersecurity is a team sport. We are each only as strong as our weakest link. But when we work together, we spur innovation and advance best practices that benefit all.
I speak from some experience here, as Google’s services are attacked every day. And yet we keep more people safe than anyone else in the world. We do that by looking at security through a collective lens, leveraging open frameworks, and relying heavily on secure open-source software.
We hope to use what we have learned to help secure Europe’s “digital decade.”
To that end, we recently published a white paper with recommendations like investing in technology that’s secure by default; working with private and international partners on new areas of cooperation, and building security based on openness and interoperability.
These recommendations are based on first-hand experience. In 2009, Google was the victim of a major cybersecurity attack, code named Operation Aurora. We learned that transparency, coupled with security by design, was the best way to secure the digital ecosystem.
As we detail in our recently released docuseries, HACKING GOOGLE, Aurora changed everything. It spurred us to shift away from the old “perimeter defense” model of crunchy on the outside, chewy in the middle (with high outside walls but no interior defenses) to a zero-trust model in which all users, all devices, and all applications are continuously checked for security risks, and yet security comes easily and naturally for users.
After Aurora, we launched our Threat Analysis Group, or TAG, to spot, disclose, and attribute threats, whether they were coming from nation-state actors or commercial spyware and surveillance vendors. We also launched our Project Zero team to find and promptly disclose previously unknown zero-day vulnerabilities in our own and other companies’ software, raising the security bar for everyone.
It hasn’t always been comfortable work–but that kind of transparency is key to security. As the computer engineering saying goes, “with enough eyes, all bugs are shallow.”
Today, by adopting advanced security innovation and threat intelligence, we ensure vulnerabilities are fixed fast, before they can be widely exploited.
You can see our approach in action whenever TAG discloses a new threat. For example, in 2017, our Android operating system was the first mobile platform to warn users about NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware–“zero-click” malware designed to allow an attacker to compromise a smartphone without a user taking any action.
By sharing information early and widely, we raised awareness of this threat, helped victims understand if they were compromised, and promoted a greater focus on mitigations. Since then, TAG has continued to report on Pegasus and other commercial spyware tools, shining a light on this murky industry.
So when the war came in Ukraine, open security principles kept us one step ahead. Since the war began, we’ve sent thousands of warnings to users targeted by nation-state actors–another practice we pioneered after Aurora. We’ve succeeded in blocking the vast majority of the attacks. And we launched Project Shield, bringing not just journalists, but human rights organizations and even government websites in Ukraine under Google’s security umbrella against distributed denial of service attacks.
Because while it can be easy to DDOS small sites, it turns out that it’s pretty tough to DDOS Google.
We are all in on this collaborative approach to security. Currently, we are working with our team at VirusTotal to launch a new Google Safety Engineering Center in Málaga, Spain, which we hope will become a European hub for joint research on advanced threats.
In 2023, our newest Google Safety Engineering Center will be launching in Málaga.
Since we acquired VirusTotal in 2012, they have grown from a scrappy startup to become the world’s leading malware scanner and repository, what many call “the Google of cybersecurity tools.” VirusTotal enables people to search for malware against the millions of new samples submitted daily.
On top of that, when Google combined our existing security solutions with Mandiant’s cyber threat intelligence, we laid the groundwork to help public and private sector organizations in Europe anticipate, warn about, and mitigate threats.
What are the larger lessons for all of us as we work toward open security?
First, partnerships and agreements among democratic and rule-of-law societies are key. We need to set aside siloed approaches and embrace an ecosystem of innovation where security experts can share threats, evolve best practices, and adopt new technologies.
In support of that ecosystem, I’m pleased to announce that in 2023, we will be hosting a new Google for Startups Growth Academy for EU Cybersecurity, a growth program to help cybersecurity startups across Europe grow into success stories.
Second, interoperability and aligned security standards between technologies and among countries makes compliance easier for businesses, innovators, and manufacturers of all sizes–which makes for more secure hardware and better software.
The third and final thing to keep in mind is that when we shift away from buggy legacy technology and perimeter defense models and toward modern infrastructure, we can accommodate today’s increasingly global, hybrid workforces, without sacrificing security.
Collective security requires not just walls, but bridges.
By adopting an approach built on open principles like security-by-default, zero-trust architecture, transparency, and principled partnerships, we can advance the frontiers of information security, letting all of us sleep better at night.