National Trust to pull advertising from Mumsnet due to swearing

21 Aug 2017 News

The National Trust is among those threatening to pull advertising from website Mumsnet due to banner ads appearing alongside forums containing swearing.

The National Trust is one of a number of large brands, including Italian fashion house Bulgari and comparison website Confused.com, which are considering pulling banner advertising from Mumsnet, after their ads appeared alongside content on the website which contained swearing.

National Trust banner ads have reportedly appeared alongside Mumsnet forum posts, including one entitled: "I can’t f**king do this anymore", which in turn generated hundreds of similarly profane comments beneath it.

A National Trust spokesman told The Times it was considering contacting Mumsnet to request that its banner adverts be removed from posts containing offensive language.

“We regularly monitor the external environment to ensure that our ads are being positioned alongside the right sort of content and therefore we will aim to address this issue by requesting that our ads do not appear alongside these swear words.”

While the charity does not pay Mumsnet directly for advertising space, it does buy digital space across a number of website via agencies.

However Mumsnet said nobody had contacted it with concerns about swearing. 

Justine Roberts, Mumsnet founder and chief executive, said: "We haven't been contacted by any advertisers with any concerns about swearing on Mumsnet and we have no plans to change our policy on allowing swearing on our forums. Mumsnet is, after all, a site for grown-ups - somewhere people visit to get advice, support and sometimes to let off a bit of steam."

Its guidelines for users state: "It's not our policy to delete swearwords (we're all adults, after all) but we do draw the line at obscenity, racist, ageist, disablist, homophobic or transphobic language, and wording that is truly beyond the pale."

 

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