UK Regulator Bans TfL Advert Over Racial Stereotypes
The Act Like a Friend campaign was intended to encourage passengers to safely intervene if they witnessed sexual harassment or hate crimes on public transport. One Facebook advert featured a black teenage boy verbally harassing a white girl on a bus, while a white teenage boy sat nearby and boxed her in.
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ruled that the advert “featured a harmful stereotype, was irresponsible and likely to cause serious offence.” TfL confirmed it would no longer use the Facebook clip as part of the campaign.
The ASA reviewed the advert after a viewer complained that it perpetuated harmful racial stereotypes. TfL told the regulator that both teenagers in the clip intimidated the victim and behaved offensively.
The ASA noted that, in the advert, the black boy alone was depicted verbally harassing the white girl. “The ad did not show him as jointly intimidating the victim” and “the only aggressor in the ad was the black teenage boy,” the regulator said.
The advert was one of three short social media clips taken from a two-minute film. The other versions showed a white male committing a hate crime against a black woman and a white male targeting another white male. TfL said an average Facebook user would usually see a mix of the three adverts around three times, estimating that the chance someone only saw the version at the center of the complaint was about 2%.
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