Unilever resumes ads on Facebook and Twitter

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Unilever (the) advertising on all three platforms paused in June, citing hate speech and the polarized atmosphere in the United States. On Thursday, the household goods giant said it would end the January hiatus due to the progress the platforms had made in cleaning up their act.
“Facebook, Instagram and Twitter have committed to take concrete steps to further manage harmful content, including common definitions for 11 harmful content areas,” Unilever said in a statement.

Luis Di Como, Unilever’s executive vice president for Global Media, said the company was encouraged by the technology platforms’ commitments to create “healthier environments” in “accordance with the principles of the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM)” .

Europe threatens to disassemble Big Tech if it does not play by new rules

The World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) has launched GARM as a forum for working with platforms to tackle hate speech and misinformation. The WFA recently struck a deal through GARM that will allow the platforms to adopt common definitions and reporting standards on harmful content such as hate speech.

As part of that agreement, Google-owned Facebook, Twitter and YouTube agreed to allow outsiders to monitor how they interact with such content.

In response to Unilever’s announcement, Facebook said, “We look forward to our continued collaboration in 2021 and remain committed to our work with the Global Alliance for Responsible Media to combat harmful content online.”

Unilever, which spends billions of dollars each year on marketing for brands like Ben & Jerry’s and Dove, had warned that it was running out of patience. In 2018, the company warned advertisements from digital platforms that it said had become a “swamp” of fake news, racism, sexism and extremism.

The company’s stance against Facebook and Twitter knocked out shares in both companies. According to estimates from ad intelligence firm Pathmatics, Unilever was the 30th most paid on Facebook ads in 2019, depositing more than $ 42 million into the platform.

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