Why online safety is something society must fix together

The rise of the internet and global connectivity has been amongst the most transformational achievements of the modern age. But as online safety has exploded into a much bigger, societal issue – beyond just the safety of our brands – it became clear to us at Unilever that the only way to accelerate real change was to collaborate.

If we wanted to keep people safe online, we had to take a bolder leap.

And so, last year we became one of the founding members of the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM). Working closely with the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), GARM has brought together an unprecedented coalition of 39 advertisers, six agency holding companies, seven leading media platforms and seven industry associations.

This year, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, key representatives for GARM reunited to announce our collective goal: to eliminate harmful online content and ensure that bad actors have no access to advertiser funding.

At Unilever, we have been advocating for a cleaner online environment for many years. Back in 2018, we launched the Unilever Responsibility Framework to collectively rebuild trust back into our systems and society. It is great to be able to scale our learnings with GARM to ensure the industry is working towards the same common goal.

The Unilever Responsibility Framework covers three areas:

1. Responsible Platforms

Unilever will not invest in platforms or environments that do not protect our children, or which create division in society and promote anger or hate. We prioritise investing only in responsible platforms that are committed to creating a positive impact in society. This includes:

• Interventions such as age-gating, parental restrictions and transparent privacy settings;
• Human and machine reviews to eliminate terrorism and hate-related propaganda;
• Removal of fraudulent users and BOT activity

2. Responsible Content

Unilever is committed to creating responsible content, initially tackling gender stereotypes in advertising through #Unstereotype, and championing this across the industry through the #Unstereotype Alliance.

This includes for example:   

• Strong community standards and guidelines around hate speech, bullying and violence
• Interventions to prevent misinformation, and more importantly disinformation in news content.
• Ensuring content is free from harmful and outdated stereotypes about people

3. Responsible Infrastructure

Unilever will only partner with organisations which are committed to creating a better digital infrastructure such as aligning around one measurement system and improving the consumer experience.

• We have partnered with the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) to scale our own internal efforts here by working together to launch the WFA Cross Media Measurement initiative and the Global Alliance for Responsible Media 

This framework is a starting point from which we will continue to evolve its principles and actions for our brands, our consumers and for the societies we operate in.

But why am I telling you all this?

It may seem unusual for the Chief HR Officer to be addressing the topic of responsible media. But whilst I cannot claim to personally have the expertise of Unilever’s media team, I have witnessed the larger impact that an unsafe online environment has on people and societies.

This is not just about marketing, but about protecting society. 

The internet has democratised access to information; it can empower individuals and provide us with the opportunities to create whole new industries. However, our hyper-connected world has also created new challenges that affect us all. The rise of bad actors taking advantage of the reach that these new platforms provide, to spread malintent, is just one example. This contributes to the continuing decline in people’s trust, fuelled by disinformation; politics of hate; rampant fraud; data misuse and security breaches. 

The potential adverse effects on all of us, our children, and future generations, is reason enough for me to support all efforts in this space and use Unilever’s scale for good.

I am proud of the efforts of our media team who have been at the forefront of driving this through their immense expertise and passion. They have driven this because they believe that this is no longer just a marketing issue, but a societal issue. And solving it collaboratively is the right thing to do.

More information on GARM