Twitter has signed a contract with the MRC to begin a "pre-assessment process," the company announced on July 21. The process is an initial step toward evaluating the platform's compliance with some of the brand safety standards measured by the industry metrics accreditation body, such as those related to ads served on Twitter's main timeline, user profiles, search results and in its Amplify pre-roll ad product. Read more below.

• Twitter and Facebook move ahead with brand safety audits by MRC amid increasing pressure to mitigate extremist and false content on the platforms.
• While the internet has exploded with how-to guides for candidates to create the most effective TikTok job application, a number of commentators are reluctant to embrace a scheme that could entrench biases.
• This week's Digiday+ Media Briefing looks at how the pandemic and the cookie's eventual demise have created the conditions for the programmatic ad market that publishers have been pushing for, with a shift to private buying coinciding with prices pushing past pre-pandemic levels.
• As the ad tech industry rewires itself around the contours of privacy, supply-side platforms are reinventing themselves (again).
• Future PLC has seen its e-commerce affiliate revenue increase by 56% in the first half of 2021 to represent more than 30% of its total revenue.