CAN’s Policy Platform aims to address a key issue that the industry has been navigating: self-regulation and opaque, blurred rules that make it difficult for advertisers to follow. Our recommendations aim to make clear the expectations and guidelines that advertisers can legally abide by, that ensure advertising works for everyone. Business interests do not have to be curbed by attempts at improving the safety of the digital ecosystem – they can work in tandem.
CAN’s Policy Recommendations
The platform and generative AI business models of monetising attention at any cost are harming individuals; degrading information integrity at an alarming rate and destroying the trust in the industry, which is essential to effective advertising. Despite prolonged attempts by the advertising industry and platforms, self-regulation of digital advertising and platforms has failed. CAN’s Policy Platform outlines key asks for a safer digital ecosystem that ensures that advertising works for everyone.
Our recommendations for policy makers include:
1. Enshrine protection of information integrity in law:
Align with the recommendations in The UN Global Principles on Information Integrity and the Global Declaration on Information Integrity on Climate Change.
Define and recognise information integrity within digital regulation frameworks, and require platforms, advertising systems, and AI services to identify, assess, and mitigate systemic risks arising from the monetisation and amplification of harmful or misleading content-while upholding freedom of expression.
This includes ensuring transparency and accountability for how advertising and AI systems shape information environments.
2. Drive transparency through the digital advertising ecosystem:
Ensure end-to-end transparency and accountability across the digital advertising supply chain, enabling advertisers to verify where their ads are placed, what content they fund, and how media-buying decisions are made.
Platforms and intermediaries should be required to provide object-level transparency – at the level of individual content placements – and clear disclosure of the systems, including AI-driven tools, that determine ad delivery. This is necessary to enable informed decision-making, safeguard information integrity, and ensure that advertising spend does not inadvertently fund illegal or harmful content.
3. Stronger accountability mechanisms:
Establish enforceable accountability mechanisms that ensure platforms and intermediaries are financially and operationally accountable for the monetisation of harmful or illegal content, including proportionate penalties tied to harm and revenue.
4. Ensure business models rewards citizens and business:
Align platform and advertising business models with societal interests by reducing incentives to monetise harmful content, enforcing data minimisation in targeting, and ensuring fair value distribution across the digital ecosystem.
What You Can Do
Now is the time for advertisers to back policy change that will deliver more effective, transparent advertising. We ask that you read, share, and discuss the CAN Policy Platform within your teams and explore whether these asks can be incorporated into your own policy work and advocacy.
The recent Molly VS THE MACHINES documentary, alongside Louis Theroux’s Manosphere documentary, highlight a growing societal awareness around the dangers and harms of our current digital ecosystem. The Pervasive By Design report, launched last year by the Molly Rose Foundation and The Bright Initiative by Bright Data, outlined that 1 in 10 pieces of self-harm and suicide content remain monetised on social media platforms, eight years on from Molly’s tragic death.
Our recommendations aim to ensure that advertisers can continue to see strategic business benefits without continuing to fund harmful content online. By sharing, discussing, and promoting our policy platform, we can work towards building an industry where effective advertising works for everyone.
If you would like to work with CAN on any of the policy asks outlined in the Policy Platform or would simply like to know more about our asks and recommendations, please reach out to us at hello@consciousadnetwork.org.
