December 11, 2023
Press
TikTok is set to send in their troops to Washington for three days next week, and by troops, we mean a gaggle of influencers, who are part of an 11th-hour lobbying blitz created with the hope to stave off the forced sale of the company.
The ByteDance-owned app has been under security scrutiny for quite some time now and in an attempt to sway the Government to reconsider the bans they face; TikTok is paying dozens of influencers to descend on Washington to plead their case.
Now we’re no stranger to the value and power of influencers as a marketing tool; in just the last 5 years, we’ve seen the almighty rise of sponsored and paid marketing personalities, famed by in-app algorithms and big-budged campaigns and #spon content establish a genuinely viable and desirable career for thousands of media-savvy individuals.
The app sent messages out to creators, asking for their help, and inviting them to join “standing side by side with creators and the TikTok team at the U.S. Capital” to show TikTok’s positive impact, according to a message reviewed by The Information.
Understandably, it’s no surprise that TikTok’s leading account holders are keen to fight the app’s legal battles for them in order to save their jobs and continue to make an income from the creative content platform - though it does perhaps feel like an insincere media stunt by TikTok.
In a statement, TikTok spokesperson Jamal Brown said “Lawmakers in Washington debating TikTok should hear firsthand from people whose lives would be directly affected by their decisions,” We look forward to welcoming our creators to our nation’s capital, helping them make their voices heard, and continuing to drive meaningful impact in their lives and for their communities.”
We’re intrigued to see the impact the influencers will have in Washington and the content that will no doubt follow; but are they enough of a reason to dismiss genuine security threats and will the ban be dropped? We shall see!
BBC Sports presenter and crisp-loving LEGEND, Gary Lineker, voiced his very fair opinions in a tweet criticising the Government’s new immigration policy last week.
Unfortunately, the BBC saw this as a breach of their impartiality regulations and suspended him until they decided what to do next. Shortly after this, chaos across the BBC unfurled.
Co-workers, presenters, commentators and many media personalities refused to work in solidarity and BBC Sports broadcasts were either cancelled or altered as a result.
Over the last week, the drama seemed to continue and further concerns surrounding the BBC’s ‘Social Media Use’ guidelines and specifically the grey areas which had led to Lineker’s suspension.
Many perked up about the conflicting in-balance of freedom of speech and the rules that regulate the BBC’s impartiality to protect the brand. Ex-BBC Director of News, James Harding said that the row was “part of a bigger muddle on impartiality” and Dame Patricia Hodgson, former chairwoman of Ofcom and ex-BBC Director of Policy, chipped in to say: “I think that we’ve been asking the wrong question over the last week. The issue – and it’s not clear – is how we combine free speech with respect for that BBC brand; that’s to say the way that the BBC respects the opinions of the range of people it serves.”
In 2020, new guidelines were introduced by BBC director-general Tim Davie. The guidelines state that BBC employees, contractors and freelancers should never express personal opinions on matters of public policy, politics or “controversial subjects” on either professional or personal accounts.
As a solution between Lineker and the BBC, an agreed external company-wide review is due to audit the BBC on its existing social media guidance with a particular focus on how it applies to freelancers outside news and current affairs.
Lineker seems satisfied, supporting the news of the agreed review and will return to our screens with immediate effect.
So with that, we will patiently await developments from the upcoming review and will no doubt report back soon.
Just imagine, EYNTKIT, entirely written by Generative Ai…
Admittedly it would make our copywriter’s Monday workload a fair bit lighter (I’m speaking in the third person here), but more importantly, it would be a huge tech development made by Google. A pipedream? Nope, it is in fact a very recently unveiled news update by Google.
This may come as a surprise as all initial plans to introduce Generative Ai were dismissed by Google not too long ago. The company, who champions itself as a legitimate and trustworthy information source was unsure of how the Ai would stand up, citing reputational risks, due to the propensity for such systems to produce flawed, incorrect or inaccurate results.
But as competitors such as Bing and Microsoft have levelled up their integrated Ai software with tools from ChatGPT, it seems that Google has no other option than to act and to act with vigour.
Going full-hog rather than be left behind, Google is developing its very own intuitive Ai elements to run in harmony alongside its software and processes.
The new features will enable a range of new functionalities within Google’s tools, including:
In practice, this means Google users can present a subject and have Google’s clever little tech create a first draft entirely made by Ai; saving users time, and improving workflows.
Naturally, I’m interested. How can I resist speedy copy, readily generated ‘just for me’, with drafts that deeply consider my client’s subject matter…
Genuinely, the thought of Google software that can comb through digital trends and information to generate the most enticing and witty lump of copy in mere moments based on my few instructions is pretty exciting. Albeit, terrifying.
So this week, all thanks to Google, my ‘Monday scaries’ are not of what ill-behaviour occurred this weekend, but as I sit staring out of the window trying to find suitable synonym replacements for a third of my copy, I’m left with the jarring thought ‘Am I about to be replaced by robots?’
Hey, who knows, maybe this article was already written by Ai anyway.
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