Year in Review: the top 12 IT, Media and Advertising news of 2021
Year in Review: Moonshot News has selected the 12 most important IT, Media and Advertising news from the soon passed year, on top of the three major areas that we will continue focusing in 2022:
- NFTs: the demand for NFTs – blockchain registration of ownership – is continuing to surge and the NFT market is showing no signs of slowing down, with new industries joining the party and working on monetizing via this technology
- Metaverse: the vision for augmented or mixed reality becoming part of our everyday lives is driving the business of some of the biggest companies in the world; a wealth of experiences and of course revenues is about to rise.
- Regulation: governments and authorities are going to continue their race to catch up with the technology giants and regulate their dominant position, driving actions to the benefit of the citizens’ rights and market’s fair competition.
January
Donald Trump’s accounts on Facebook and Instagram were blocked after a mob stormed the US Capitol on January 6 in an attempt to have the election of Joe Biden as the new US President declared invalid. The blocking of Trump’s accounts started a news story that would follow us the whole year. Facebook’s Oversight Board agreed with the Facebook management that it was correct to block Trump’s accounts but instructed the management to set a time limit for the blocking.
Facebook later said Trump could get access to his accounts no earlier than January 2023. His Twitter account is blocked without deadline.
February
Social media audio app Clubhouse was booming and said its app had been downloaded 10 million times. The Clubhouse was at that time “on invitation only”. Its chatrooms were promoted by celebrities like Tesla’s Elon Musk and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg.
With Clubhouse’s concept – only chats, no recordings and on invitation only – going viral, it did not take long for Zuckerberg, Twitter, Spotify and others to launch their own chatroom-like concept.
With so many copy-cats, the focus on Clubhouse was later in the year more blurred.
March
The conflict between how to individually target online advertising and protection of privacy was a never ending story in 2021 that for sure will be with us also in 2022. The advertising business is focusing on how to target ads when Google is stopping its so called third-party cookies.
Google said stopping the third-party cookies means protection of privacy and suggested an alternative that would mean targeting groups of users with similar interests but not individually.
Critics said stopping the third-party cookies would just mean that Google’s dominance in online advertising would increase and that the privacy argument was an excuse for the company securing its market dominance.
April
Pros and cons with artificial intelligence was discussed when the European Commission proposed rules for responsible use of AI saying the aim is “to turn Europe into the global hub for trustworthy Artificial Intelligence”.
Concerning the controversial remote biometric identification, the Commission said this is considered high risk and subject to strict requirements.
Not everyone was pleased but wanted stricter rules for biometric use including the EU’s own privacy watchdog.
May
After 25 years, the BBC apologized to the British royal family saying the broadcaster “fell short of high standards of integrity and transparency” over its reporter Martin Bashir’s famous interview with Princess Diana. Bashir had faked documents to get the interview and later lied to BBC managers about them, BBC reported.
The interview was watched by 23 million people and included Princess Diana saying “there were three of us in this marriage”, referring to Prince Charles’ relationship with Camilla Parker-Bowles.
The BBC said a report showed “clear failings” adding: “We are very sorry for this.”
June
Temperature in the long discussion about how Google should pay for using publishers journalistic content jumped several degrees when French anti-trust authority fined Google 500 million euros for failing to comply fully with temporary orders to negotiate with publishers.
After many rounds, Google late 2021 said the company would negotiate with publisher in good faith and that agreements on how to pay should be reached within three months after negotiations had started. Critics have said Google had not been negotiating in good faith just letting time pass.
July
The EU, UK and US in a synchronized approach accused China of being behind a major cyber attack that targeted Microsoft Exchange servers earlier in 2021. The attack affected 30 000 organizations worldwide. EU said there were also attacks directly on European governments.
The EU Commission said it has also detected “malicious cyber activities with significant effects that targeted government institutions and political organizations in the EU and member states, as well as key European industries.”
China said the accusations were unwarranted. Foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said the accusations were politically motivated smears.
August
The abrupt Taliban take over in Afghanistan forced social media to introduce new rules meant to protect users in the country from being harassed. Amnesty International said thousands of Afghans, including academics, journalists civil society activists and women human rights defenders, were at serious risk of Taliban reprisals.
Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn all announced that they have taken action to protect Afghan citizens’ accounts from being misused by the new rulers.
Facebook security policy head Nathaniel Gleicher tweeted that the company has removed the ability to view or search the friends lists of accounts in Afghanistan.
September
A storm against Facebook started when The Wall Street Journal published a series of articles based on documents leaked by former Facebook Manager Frances Haugen. Teenagers blamed Instagram for increased levels of anxiety, according to an unpublished survey by Facebook and its Instagram, the newspaper reported.
Facebook said the newspaper “story focuses on a limited set of findings and casts them in a negative light.”
However, the storm continued and a few weeks later, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the rebranding of the company to be called Meta.
October
Two journalists – Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov – were awarded the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize “for their courageous fight for freedom of expression in the Philippines and Russia.”
“At the same time, they are representatives of all journalists who stand up for this ideal in a world in which democracy and freedom of the press face increasingly adverse conditions,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee said.
The Committee said Maria Ressa, co-founder of website Rappler, uses freedom of expression to expose abuse of power, use of violence and growing authoritarianism in her native country, the Philippines.
“Dmitry Andreyevich Muratov has for decades defended freedom of speech in Russia under increasingly challenging conditions. In 1993, he was one of the founders of the independent newspaper Novaja Gazeta.”
November
The EU Commission announced that they work on a European Media Freedom Act to ensure the integrity and independence of the EU media market, in an effort to help news media struggling both with financing and with governments using state advertising to indirectly influence news media by refusing to advertise in media criticizing the government.
This is one of two major regulation initiatives by the European Commission, together with the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act that the EU governments will start discussing in the European Council. Discussions are expected to start in the first half of 2022 when France holds the presidency.
December
Μicrosoft acquired programmatic advertising marketplace Xandr from AT&T and at the same time announced a strategic cooperation with Taboola to create an audience network.
The actions were clear indications that Microsoft is hoping to develop into a bigger challenger for Google in the programmatic advertising space, as the announcement includes a direct reference to privacy practices and publishers’ monetization opportunities beyond the third-party cookies.
Digital advertising accounted for 64.4% of all advertising in 2021- where Google, Amazon and Meta have a 80% to 90% share.
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