At the heart of GARM’s brand safety failures is the rise of negative partisanship. The polarization of online discourse is a broad issue, with cultural drivers that are hard to define via contextless keyword automation. GARM’s attempts to use this method have only complicated the issue.

GARM’s framework penalizes content that tackles subjects that would normally be non-issues for most ad placement, including terrorism, spam, and online piracy. And when they address polarization more definitively by tracking relevant metrics like “debated sensitive social issues,” the available market solutions still rely on keyword detection for potentially controversial topics (e.g. Biden, Israel), slapping highly relevant and responsibly produced news items with labels like Medium Risk or High Risk, regardless of how carefully those topics were discussed.

GARM indeed has some roots in politics as a byproduct of Donald Trump’s political success, as well as subsequent claims of misinformation and disinformation. But now, those same accusations are levied against both liberals and conservatives, muddying the waters. GARM tried to address misinformation in their framework but then realized it is not something that any person, organization or tech can do in a way that would be acceptable to a broad group of people.

Ultimately, for marketers who don’t want to get caught in the middle of the culture wars, the choice becomes simple. It’s easier to not advertise on any show or platform that could be unsafe, rather than to risk being the next Harry’s Razors, accused of supporting harmful ideas or political favoritism.

But this hurts the entire market, regardless of political affiliation.

Finding civility

GARM’s thesis began as a positive step in applying nutrition labels to media, a standard the industry still desperately requires. It just needs a different approach.

No one cares about differing opinions when it comes to brand safety. But when personal attacks get involved, brands get caught in the middle. This is where future brand safety efforts should focus—trading measurement of contextless keywords for measurement of these types of ad hominem attacks that degrade civility.

If we can measure personal attacks and make brands aware of the civility levels in environments where their ads may appear, we can rise above accusations of political bias and promote a healthier online discourse while creating a safer, more reliable way for brands to share their messages.