In 2025 the increasingly surreal media concept of brand safety, once an industry consensus-driven shield against reputational risk, has morphed into a battleground of left versus right ideals. Ideology and selective perception have left us with a confounding range of decision-making variables that are frightfully difficult. Many sit on the sidelines wondering how and why others are making decisions and pondering if they can do the same without igniting the ire of consumers and the government. What began as an industry-wide effort to keep ads away from the internet’s darkest corners has since evolved into a highly politicized dilemma.
The FTC’s latest order, limiting ad agencies’ ability to counsel and avoid ad placements based on political viewpoints, marks another move in a growing ideological tug-of-war over who gets to shape the public square’s financial future. For advertisers caught in this shifting landscape, niche & specialized terms like brand suitability are replacing a decade of widely agreed upon concepts and practices for brand safety. Signaling a pivot from defensive actions to selective positioning. Liam Brennan, a marketing consultant and former agency leader, calls it a “more positive approach,” but one can’t help sensing the slippery slope that is now brand safety. In a programmatic environment where over 90% of digital display ad dollars move through automated pipes, new tools like Assembly Control promise clients tighter control over where ads appear. Yet beneath the veneer of empowerment lies a system upended by increasingly opaque categorization, exclusion lists, and subjective judgments about what makes a partner suitable.
Ad Fontes Media’s Vanessa Otero insists these decisions are often, and should be, driven by concerns over misinformation and harmful content - not political alignment. But, under the FTC’s recent consent order, guidance aimed at neutralizing misinformation and harmful content will be labeled as an unfair conspiracy against conservative publishers.
We now find ourselves in a landscape that echoes Aldous Huxley’s imagined future: one of curated realities, selective truths, and decisions made not for public interest but for the illusion of neutrality. The ad industry’s evolving brand safety protocols aren’t just risk management tools - they’re instruments of cultural gatekeeping, increasingly influenced by the competing narratives of controlling interests. The question isn’t whether brands should be safe, but whether brands should subjugate brand values and consumer connectivity to steer clear of governmental interference. Are we trading in brand suitability for brand sustainability in the near future? The answer is important.