Stakeholders including WFA develop voluntary code on disinformation

Representatives of online platforms, leading social networks and the marketing and advertising industry, including WFA, have developed a Code of Practice which outlines standards to address the spread of disinformation online.

The Code of Practice has now been endorsed by the European Commission and brand owners can, on a voluntary basis, sign up to the commitments on advertising.

This code aims to address some of the objectives set out by the European Commission’s Communication presented in April 2018. One of these objectives is to ‘significantly improve the scrutiny of ad placements in order to reduce revenues for purveyors of disinformation’.

One of the commitments related to advertisers is to use brand safety and verification tools, in collaboration with their partners across the digital advertising ecosystem, to avoid ads appearing next to fake news content.

The commitment is in line with WFA’s recently published WFA Global Media Charter, which identifies brand safety protection as one of the main areas which requires action from both advertisers and those across the media chain.

Said Stephan Loerke, CEO of WFA: “Brand safety is the fastest rising media issue on our members’ agendas. As brand owners, we are committed to avoiding the funding of actors seeking to influence division or inflict reputational harm through false or misleading content. As such, WFA welcomes the launch of the code of practice and its endorsement by ecosystem partners and the European Commission.”

For more information about the code of practice, please reach out to Catherine Armitage, Head of Digital Policy, at c.armitage@wfanet.org