The advertisers tricked into paying for it all.
Sadly, the time is long past, in all probability, when legislation and regulation can bring socievil media to heel. Emerging legislation may have a beneficial effect but there will always be places beyond the legislative boundaries that are able to be exploited.
Ultimately, until the people paying for this - the advertisers - start flexing their muscles (and yay to xitter advertisers for doing this - it was so effective that Skum had to start an unwinnable lawsuit) we are stuck with it. Which is one more reason - not that I need any more - not to use xitter and fuckbook.
And, of course, too many advertisers still adhere to the ‘I don’t know which half is wasted’ mantra, so “that’s alright then”.
In this day and age there may still be an unknowable proportion wasted, but it is not hard to find out which adverts you are paying for are (likely to be) on pages of
- AI slop
- fascist or nazi fuckwittery
- places/countries where inciting genocide is deemed ok by the host site
- generally anti-democracy messages or authoritarian abuse
But advertising managers have their budgets and as long as they can show a ‘return’ on that, who inside the corporation gives a fuck about anything else?
