FollowMajor companies like Nissan and Nationwide have pulled off their Facebook ad campaigns as their advertisements started showing beside offensive images and posts. The offensive content shows violence against girls and there is a hate speech against females. The women’s rights organizations have alleged about publication of hateful content against women such as photos of abused women on Facebook. This is the reason why Nissan and Nationwide have stopped their ad campaign and other companies are also considering taking the same step.
Both small and large companies heavily invest on advertising on Facebook.com which is the most popular social networking site. Facebook offers targeted advertising which finds out that there is a possibility for a person to make a purchase. And then automatically slots the ads for the same product on the pages where he visits.
Advertisements of Nissan which is one of the major car manufacturers from Japan and Nationwide which is United Kingdom’s biggest building society and Unilever’s Dove appeared next to offensive photos on Facebook when users searched for it or came across it accidentally. What is more embarrassing is that screenshots of images with ads showing up near explicit photos have already circulated on the internet.
Nationwide has already discontinued their ad campaigns. Dove has not cancelled their campaign yet but they are in talks with Facebook to get rid of the explicit content. They have also asked Facebook to alter the targeting terms to deal with any future occurrences of such kinds of problems. Nissan has reported that have already stopped their ad campaign on Facebook but they have also stated that they are working with Facebook to weed out those ads that were showing near offensive content.
Facebook’s has to take responsibility for their advertising mistake if they want to grow their advertising system. What has happened with Facebook is really going to affect its reputation online as the images are continuously being circulated.
Nationwide has stated that they are a well-trusted brand in the market and they feel that Facebook should have strict procedure and rules in practice to make sure that brands do not appear beside unsuitable content. Dove’s ads were showing alongside hateful content against women. Dove stated that they want Facebook to perform extra measures to deal with the issue. Facebook has already removed the hateful content pages.
Attention was drawn to the unsuitable content by an open letter which was sent to the Facebook on behalf of several social groups. They insisted Facebook to classify the explicit content against women. The letter claimed that Facebook has failed to come out and issue a public statement on the ongoing problem and talk with concerned users and put into practice principles that can help in bettering the situation. On Tuesday, Facebook said that they removed most of the inappropriate content that is related to the present issue. They also stated with nearly 100 billion pages on Facebook, it can take some time to completely remove the offensive content.
