Adland demands change to stop racism in open letter to Facebook, Twitter and Snap

Thought Leadership

Published on July 15, 2021

Categories Thought Leadership

A group of advertisers, agencies, campaign groups and individuals from across the industry has written to the chief executives of Facebook, Twitter and Snap demanding social networks do "more to make their platforms safe" and stop racism.

Entitled "#TogetherWeCan. In solidarity against online racism", the open letter has been compiled by the Conscious Advertising Network and calls out – "as many of us warned" – a "lack of adequate action by social media companies to combat online discrimination".

The high-profile signatories - which include Publicis Media's Sue Frogley and Starcom UK CEO Nadine Young - are calling on social networks to make four key changes, in time for the start of the 2021/22 Premier League season, which kicks off on 13 August.

They are:

Publish updated hate speech policies, that include the use of emojis, to support your zero tolerance approach.
Advertise your zero tolerance approach directly to users.
Enforce your policies and report racist abuse to the police, employers and relevant football clubs as a crime.
Add an interstitial to disrupt potentially racist remarks, and ensure human checking on all posts flagged in this way.

Read the full story in Campaign UK here.

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