As Social Media Sites Thrive, Advertisers Seek More Control of Their Brand

As social media sites pursue advertising in a bid for new revenue, they are finding that they must simultaneously create a safe space for the advertisers they attract. With the money, they are discovering, comes responsibility.

Facebook learned that the hard way last week. After failed attempts to get the social network to remove pages glorifying violence against women, feminist activists waged a digital media campaign that highlighted marketers whose ads were found alongside those pages. Nissan and several smaller advertisers temporarily removed their ads from the site. Amid mounting public pressure, Facebook acknowledged that its systems to identify and remove such content had not worked effectively and promised to improve those processes. The company began removing the pages in question. The episode underscored a conundrum for social media sites forged from the philosophy that free speech should thrive on the Internet: will they be able control content created by their users, so that advertisers are not embarrassed by material beyond their control?