Online advertising: Vodafone says it will blacklist sites that run hate speech or fake news

Vodafone has today introduced new global rules intended to prevent its advertising from appearing within outlets focused on creating and sharing hate speech and fake news, the company's NZ consumer director Matt Williams says.

The new rules, which are now in effect, include Vodafone's definition of hate speech and fake news for the purposes of determining whether a particular outlet should carry Vodafone advertising.

Ad networks like Google spray ads over thousands of sites, meaning ads inevitably appear next to embarrassing or inappropriate content at times (including on the Google-owned YouTube). Advertisers have limited control but can blacklist certain sites from the mix.

There is no change to Vodafone's policy on network access to the outlets in question, Mr Williams emphasises.

In a similar move, Xero blacklisted Breitbart News in December last year, saying "it doesn't reflect our values."

The move drew plaudits from some NBR commenters, but others saw it as an attack on free speech, or that Xero had been overly presumptive in its categorisation of Breitbart (the conservative news site founded by hardliner Steve Bannon, now a strategic adviser to Donald Trump).

A spokeswoman for Xero said some local sites were also blacklisted but declined to name any.

Vodafone also refused to comment on specific New Zealand sites, telling NBR, "We’re not able to release the whitelist but all the major New Zealand outlets are on it."

“As one of the largest brands in New Zealand and globally, we know we must take a stand on issues that are important to our people; customers, staff and shareholders, and to society,” Mr Williams says.

“Fortunately, the New Zealand media landscape has not seen the sorts of hate speech and fake news outlets that have become common in some of our other markets, so in New Zealand the whitelist is fairly comprehensive,” said Matt.  “However, we have taken steps to ensure digital networks that distribute our advertising to specific international outlets must declare all those websites for our review to be included on our whitelist.”

Noose tightening on freedom of information
The UK-based Vodafone's move comes as British prime minister Theresa May pushes for tighter rules around internet use in general in the wake of the latest London terror attacks — including a ban on encryption.

Tech commentator Ian Apperley says such a move would handicap many mainstream services that incorporate encrypted traffic, from Apple iMessage to Skype to Google Drive, undermining the security of consumers' and businesses' information.

He sees terrorists being pushed to the dark web, and pushing on with their communications unhindered. 

Noose tightening on ads
Vodafone's announcement also comes in the same week Google has confirmed plans to add an ad blocker to its popular Chrome web browser and switch it on by default – an industry-first that will push ad blocking (already adopted by up to one million Kiwis) further into the mainstream.

Google has allied with an independent group called the Coalition for Better Ads to create a laundry list of annoying or intrusive advertising formats that will be automatically blocked.

Cynics have noted that all of Google's ad formats are whitelisted.

RAW DATA: Vodafone statement/definition of hate speech

Blocking advertising on hate speech and fake news outlets

 Vodafone, third parties acting on its behalf and its advertising platform suppliers (including, but not limited to, Google and Facebook) must take all measures necessary to ensure that Vodafone advertising does not appear within hate speech and fake news outlets. We define these as outlets whose predominant purpose is the dissemination of content that is:

• deliberately intended to degrade women or vulnerable minorities (“hate speech”); or

• presented as fact-based news (as opposed to satire or opinion) that has no credible primary source (or relies on fraudulent attribution to a primary source) with what a reasonable person would conclude is the deliberate intention to mislead (“fake news”).

Note that:

• the term “outlet” encompasses all social media, digital, print and broadcast channels, sites, apps, programmes and publications;

• the term “advertising” encompasses all forms of brand promotion including advertising, advertorial, sponsorship and co-marketing arrangements; and

• these mandatory rules apply to all Vodafone brands, subsidiary brands, joint venture brands and sub-brands.

The hate speech and fake news definitions, above, apply to an outlet as a whole. The test is whether or not the predominant purpose of the entire outlet is to communicate and share this kind of harmful material. An outlet that carries some hate speech or fake news content – but where the majority of content disseminated would not meet the tests above – must not be categorised as warranting exclusion from advertising whitelists on hate speech/fake news grounds.

The rules above are designed to protect the integrity of Vodafone’s brands and sub-brands and relate purely to restrictions on advertising placement. They do not, and must never, be used as the basis for restrictions on access to content by our customers (or any other users) who must remain free to create, view and share all lawful content as they choose.