Where’s the sensitivity, asks netizens who watched the video. This is the problem with algorithms and programmatic advertising, basically placements of commercials left entirely to sophisticated artificial intelligence that decides where the ads should appear, often based on target audience and their profile. While most of the time they get the slot correct, there are times where the matching can be completely awkward. For instance, would you like to see a Haagen Dazs advertisement in between a calf slaughtering video? The technology behind some of the big tech company that make their billions from ad dollars are extremely complex and are supposed to be super intelligent. Yet we often hear and see insensitive ad placements like this one.
The video is an interesting documentary recording of Malaysia during the May 13 1969 incident which appeared on YouTube 2 weeks ago, courtesy of a French media depicting the aftermath in Kuala Lumpur after the government declared a state of emergency. The black and white video with French narration gives a first person point of view of the people during that dreadful day, for some of us this is the first time Malaysia is seen in such a shocking way. At one point in the video there was even a dead body strewn by the sidewalk against a backdrop of burning buses and cars up in flames overturned, coupled with the sight of military presence armed with weapons. This is something we would never fathom to see in our beloved nation, but yet it happened. Unequivocally May 13 was the darkest moment in our nations history, a reminder of the fragility on the racial cocktail this nation is built on.
A sorrow nostalgia, the video uploaded on YouTube has garnered over half a million views and since its on the free platform the 17 minute video is intersect with commercials slotted every 2-3 minutes, but the algorithm which is notoriously known to be oblivious to sensitive nature of the content picked up on the high view rate by Malaysians and placed recently purchased Hari Raya advertisement, including the one from national utility board, TNB in one of the slots. Netizens who saw the ad were incensed, describing the placements as inappropriate. Some questioned if this was on local television would any company take up such a commercial?
Google has some explaining to do and look into matters that are at local level and not configure their platform to to only global standards. We leave this to the public to give their opinion.
