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Vodafone says NO to hate speech and fake news!
Vodafone has announced that from now on they will be blocking their ads on sites which promote hate speech and fake news.
The internet is truly a wonderful place. It seemingly feels as though you have the world’s resources at your fingertips. Whatever you want or need, you can just search it on 'the Google' (as the old folks would say) and voila, there it is.
But with this great power, most, unfortunately, comes some misuse. We are all aware that there are sites out there which promote hate speech and fake news. Well, it appears that Vodafone are finally as sick of these sites as we are.
Vodafone has created advertising rules in a strong attempt to prevent their ads appearing on sites which share and create false news and any other offensive and inaccurate content. The mobile operator won’t stop their customers from visiting these sites, but instead, they will stop promoting their products on them.
"Hate speech and fake news threaten to undermine the principles of respect and trust that bind communities together," said Vodafone Group chief executive Vittorio Colao.
"Vodafone has a strong commitment to diversity and inclusion; we also greatly value the integrity of the democratic processes and institutions that are often the targets of purveyors of fake news. We will not tolerate our brand being associated with this kind of abusive and damaging content."
The new rules are applied using a “whitelist-based approach” and content controls by the company’s global agency network led by WPP, Google and Facebook.
The content controls will be used in attempts to allow Vodafone ads to feature predominately on sites which are considered “safe” or “free from harmful content”. Vodafone also add that they will continuously review this 'whitelist' to ensure they are catching all of these sorts of sites.
With the Stop Funding Hate campaign making waves, Vodafone are the next to make a moral stand and we can only hope that more companies will follow their example.
