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IAB contradicts advertiser body in new social media moderation guidelines

IAB Australia has released new guidelines on social media comment moderation telling brands that user comments don’t have to be treated with the same caution as advertising messages directly from the brand should not be treated as advertising.

The new Interactive Advertising Bureau standards directly conflict with Australian Association of National Advertisers and Advertising Standards Bureau advice that brands are liable for social comments on their own pages and that they should be treated as advertising. They also contradict the guidance on how quickly comments should be moderated.

The IAB is mainly funded by Australia’s online publishers.

Samantha Yorke, director of regulatory affairs at IAB Australia told Mumbrella: “We’ve had a number of conversations with the AANA over the past nine months or so about this issue and we have agree to disagree on whether user comments are advertising.

“The AANA and the IAB share the broader goal of wanting to help businesses engage in social media,” she said.

The IAB said there is confusion amongst  businesses about how to manage user comments on social media platforms and that their new guidelines were an attempt to address those concerns.

York said a 2011 federal court case which found Allergy Pathways was responsible for deceptive user posts on its Facebook page was often incorrectly interpreted.

“That case wasn’t a blanket responsibility for any business using social media it was very much relating to the facts of that case which were that Allergy Pathways had been previously ordered by a court to be active in looking out for misleading and deceptive comments from their users and they failed to do that which is why they were found guilty.

In announcing the rules the IAB said that after analysis of existing laws and regulation and industry practice around social media it has concluded “user comments directed towards an organisation or social media platform, or to other users who are drawn to a particular organisation, do not constitute advertising.”

“There is a real risk that organisations who treat user comments as advertising will err on the side of caution and moderate user comments very conservatively, which will adversely impact their presence on social platforms and which arguably undermines the very spirit under which social media thrives,”  said Yorke.

Signatories to the new guidelines include the IAB Australia membership which includes major online players such as Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Mi9, and Media Mind as well as industry organisations including AIMIA.

The IAB guideline outline the legal treatment of user comments that needs to be considered under Australian Consumer Law and which are enforced by the ACCC, they also make best practice recommendations on moderation, crisis management, soliciting response on social media and the requirements to review social media pages.

The IAB rules also contradict the AANA advice that brands should check pages at least once a day, and more often just after publishing content. The IAB states moderation should be “to the extent your resources allow”.

The IAB guidelines in full:

  1. Develop moderation guidelines and publish them on your social media property so that your community is very clear about how behaviour is being managed.
  2. Consider developing an internal moderation schedule, appropriate to your resourcing levels, which identifies who is moderating which social media properties and at which times.
  3. Develop a crisis management plan in the event that an issue arises on your social media platform which needs escalating.
  4. Moderate the user comments on your branded social media properties to the extent your resources allow.
  5. If you don’t have the resources within your organisation to moderate user comments, or your internal risk analysis has deemed your use of social media platforms to be high risk, consider hiring a specialist moderation business that have all the necessary clearances and are well versed in conflict management and jurisdictional matters.
  6. If you are directly soliciting a response or the creation of user generated content in relation to a provocative or edgy question posted on your social media channels which are likely to elicit controversial responses, ensure you have adequate resources to take extra care to review all responses and any provided user generated content promptly.
  7. If your business or product is directed towards children, be aware that there may be specific legal or regulatory requirements that you need to meet, and you should employ moderators who have been through a working with children check or police check and who are trained to identify suspicious behaviour which could be indicative of grooming or other predatory behaviour.
  8. Regularly review the tools that are available to you when you develop a presence on social media and consider which tools are appropriate for you to implement
  9. Provide feedback to the platform operators around how the tools work and any suggestions for improvement.

Nic Christensen 

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