Unilever's gambit reflects advertisers' role in cleaning digital 'swamp'

Since their ascendance in the 2000s, Google and Facebook have emerged as rule-setters for how businesses and people interact online. The titans of search and social media have largely defined how ads and other corporate content would appear, where they would flow, and the metrics of online advertising success.

That’s starting to change. Companies are seeing that digital marketing can bring increasing opportunities but also reputational risks. Corporations have begun pushing back, often quietly.

On Monday, one top advertiser, Unilever, went public with its criticism, calling social media “little better than a swamp”  and threatening to pull ads from platforms that leave children unprotected, create social division, or “promote anger or hate.” That comes a year after Procter & Gamble adjusted its own ad strategy,

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