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Fathers4Justice ad banned
ASA remove campaign group's "Mother's Day" advert.
By Joe Derry-Malone Published 04 July 2012
Campaign group Fathers4Justice have had an advert banned by the advertising watchdog ASA after the authority received 10 complaints that the advert was misleading and based on claims that could not be substantiated.
The advert, which ran with the headline "Say in with hate this Mother's Day" next to a photo of a toddler covered in insults in March this year, was addressed to companies that advertise on the online parents' forum Mumsnet. The advert accuses Mumsnet of labelling men as "rapists", "paedophiles" and "wifebeaters". Fathers4Justice contended that these labels are offensive anti-male content that could promote hatred aganist men and boys, a prejudice as offensive "as racism and homophobia".
The campaign group has refused to accept the accusations put against them by the ASA and argue that their advert did in no way exaggerate the gravity of the situation, using screenshots from the Mumsnet website to defend their claims.
The ASA have assured that they have contacted Mumsnet, who have reiterated their intolerance of "any kind of intolerance on the site" and concluded that the advert did indeed breach the code as it was misleading of Fathers4Justice to imply that Mumsnet themselves had endorsed comments made on their forum.
Tags: Fathers4Justice
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10 comments
"mumsnet" is not gender biased?
Your statement "The Mumsnet site clearly is full of gender hatred and F4J and the double standard whereby it only remains in place when directed at one gender is completely blatant. It's quite clearly a sexist site." is too clumsy to fully understand, but let's isolate the first point that you raise: "The Mumsnet site clearly is full of gender hatred". It's actually embarrassing to have to point out to an adult that the comments in question were directed at F4J, not at men & boys. This is obvious to most people, but not, it appears, F4J goons. It also goes without saying that the ASA don't agree with you.
How, exactly, should F4J "go after" the Guardian and New Statesman? Publish another erroneous advert and then be forced into a humiliating climbdown?
Firstly, 'against' has been spelled wrongly. Secondly, why include a picture of F4J looking 'heroic' when the article is about their misleading use of advertising and their attack of a website for mums?
Thirdly, there aren't any 'accusations' levelled against F4J by the ASA, rather, F4J failed to provide the ASA with any evidence substantiating the claims they made in the advert. F4J couldn't prove what they had said - that's why the advert was banned.
Here's what the ASA said: "We considered that the claim "the general sexist labelling of men and boys as 'rapists', 'paedophiles' and 'wife beaters' is as unacceptable and offensive as racism and homophobia" in the context of the ad implied that Mumsnet themselves had unfairly generalised men and boys in this way in their editorial content and yet we noted that F4J had also not provided us with any evidence to suggest that this was the case."
"We considered that whilst some users of the website had made negative comments about men in its forums, it was misleading of F4J to imply through this ad that Mumsnet themselves had made or endorsed those comments. We therefore concluded that the ad breached the code."
This piece really should link to the ASA decision, which is available online.
''Looking heroic''
Are you sure?
Super heroic is what I see!
When the ASA uphold an advert suggesting all men are stupid after 673 complaints, but ban one exposing what is actually going on in a loon radical feminist website (i.e. the truth in their own words) it bans it because of 10 complaints. What does this say?
It means the US is still the only country in the world with real "Freedom of Speech" based on "Truth as an absolute defense".
Equality is the name of the same!
How many of the 673 complaints actually came from individuals?
The Mumsnet site clearly is full of gender hatred and F4J and the double standard whereby it only remains in place when directed at one gender is completely blatant. It's quite clearly a sexist site.
F4J should go after the Guardian next because they're even worse and this place is pretty misandrist at times too.
Your statement "The Mumsnet site clearly is full of gender hatred and F4J and the double standard whereby it only remains in place when directed at one gender is completely blatant. It's quite clearly a sexist site." is too clumsy to fully understand, but let's isolate the first point that you raise: "The Mumsnet site clearly is full of gender hatred". It's actually embarrassing to have to point out to an adult that the comments in question were directed at F4J, not at men & boys. This is obvious to most people, but not, it appears, F4J goons. It also goes without saying that the ASA don't agree with you.
How, exactly, should F4J "go after" the Guardian and New Statesman? Publish another erroneous advert and then be forced into a humiliating climbdown?