Vodafone to stop ads appearing alongside fake news and hate speech

Vodafone is working on a strategy to ensure its advertising does not appear alongside fake news and hate speech.

The mobile telecoms giant, which reportedly spends £400 million of its annual £750 million advertising budget on digital media, is working with Google, Facebook and its advertising agencies to create a “whitelist” of safe sites where it is happy to display its advertising.

Speaking to journalists, Matt Peacock, Vodafone’s group director of corporate affairs said: “It is relatively easy to blacklist certain sites, such as those relating to porn and gambling, but it is difficult to exclude content that is – in editorial terms – at odds with an advertiser’s own principles and beliefs.”

Peacock continued: “When it comes to making a judgment about a site or channel focused on fake news or hate speech, what’s needed is a human judgment, an editorial assessment. It’s not possible to rely on algorithms alone. For that reason, we’ve concluded that the best way to ensure brand safety is to use a whitelist approach.”

The whitelist, which will be reviewed regularly, will only feature sites “highly unlikely to be focused on harmful content”.

Vodafone’s chief executive Vittorio Colao said: “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.”

However, Vodafone’s new rules will not exclude their ads from the British tabloid press.

A spokesperson from the telecom confirmed that publications would only be blocked from their whitelist if their “predominant purpose” was hate speech or fake news, meaning publishers of extreme political views (from the left or the right) have little to fear from the purge.