00:00A Transport for London advert has been taken down following complaints it reinforced negative
00:06stereotypes about black males. The Advertising Standards Authority ruled that the clip featured
00:12a harmful stereotype, was irresponsible and likely to cause serious offence. TfL has confirmed that
00:19the Facebook advert would no longer be used in its campaign. TfL told the ASA that both teenagers
00:26in the clip intimidated the victim and behaved offensively.
00:30The ASA said the advert depicted a black boy verbally harassing a white girl and although
00:35another white boy appeared in the clip, the ad did not show him as jointly intimidating
00:40the victim and the only aggressor in the ad was the teenage black boy.
00:45The advert was one of three short social media videos taken from a two-minute film. The other
00:50versions showed a white male committing a hate crime against a black woman and a white male
00:55committing a hate crime against another white male. TfL claimed that an average Facebook
01:01user would have typically been shown a mixture of the three adverts approximately three times
01:05and estimated that the chance someone was only shown the cut down at the centre of the complaint
01:10was about 2%. However, the ASA maintained that viewers may have only seen the advert in isolation.
01:18The social media adverts ran a week after the full film was shown in cinemas and on ITVX.
01:23The posters were also displayed across the transport network.
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