Advertisers demand transparency and clarity around platforms’ content policies

Commenting on the growing calls for advertisers to put pressure on social media platforms to take action against hate speech and misinformation on the platform, Stephan Loerke, CEO of WFA, said:

Advertisers and their agencies are extremely concerned by the proliferation of illegal and harmful content on social media platforms. We believe that much more needs to be done to reduce the amount of harmful and divisive content on social media platforms, and we are focused on solutions that ensure that bad actors have as little access to advertiser funding as possible.

We urge all platforms to fight against the proliferation of hate, racism, violence, discrimination and misleading information on their sites.

We believe that the best way of driving change is for advertisers to work together with social media platforms and the wider ad industry to challenge existing practices and create a safer and fairer online media environment for everyone.

To do this, advertisers believe that we need to see:

• More transparency and clarity around platforms’ content policies.
• More consistency around enforcement of these policies. 
• Evolution and dialogue with external stakeholders to ensure that these policies are fair and fit for purpose in ever-changing and volatile political contexts.

The Global Alliance for Responsible Media brings together advertisers, platforms, agencies and industry associations in an effort to jointly develop solutions and responses to these challenges.

 We are only at the beginning of our journey, but we invite all advertisers to collaborate with these efforts to put provoke and enable the bold changes needed to create a safer, more responsible online environment.

Photo by Anthony Quintano from Honolulu, HI, United States / CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)