Vodafone announced new global rules intended to prevent its advertising from appearing within outlets focused on creating and sharing hate speech and fake news. The new rules – which are now in effect – include Vodafone's definition of hate speech and fake news for the purposes of determining whether or not a particular outlet should carry Vodafone advertising. There is no change to Vodafone's policy on network access to the outlets in question.
"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."
Vodafone already has a number of rules designed to ensure transparency and integrity in the allocation of the Group's global advertising budget. For example, Vodafone's current policy expressly prohibits using commercial engagement with a media outlet as leverage to influence editorial opinion regarding Vodafone's products, services or corporate activities.
The new rules focused on hate speech and fake news outlets are implemented by means of a whitelist-based approach using content controls implemented by Vodafone’s global agency network (led by WPP), Google and Facebook.
Those controls ensure that Vodafone advertisements are only served within selected outlets identified as highly unlikely to be focused on harmful content. These measures will be reviewed regularly by Vodafone and its global agency network to ensure that the selection of outlets for whitelisting is appropriate and neither too broad nor too narrow.
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.
Vodafine defines 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”).