20 April 2021

GARM establishes a benchmark for digital brand safety

The Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) has launched its first report tracking performance on brand safety across seven platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube.

Why it matters 

By aggregating existing platform transparency reports and adding in policy-level granularity, the new document creates a common framework that enables advertisers to assess progress against brand safety for each platform member of GARM. The new framework also drives simplicity, focus and highlights the use of best practice methodology.

Four learnings 

• The number of content removals – at 3.3 billion – remains consistent. More than four out of five pieces of content removed stem from three GARM content categories – Spam, Sexual Content, and Hate Speech and Acts of Aggression.

• Removals of violating users are on the rise – there has been an average growth in account removals of more than 30%, with removals up to 14.9 million reported. For YouTube, this increase was 40%. 

• Hate Speech and Acts of Aggression has been the focus of industry attention, and there is intensified enforcement across the metrics being shared. Facebook saw a reduction in prevalence for hate speech (down by 20% from Q3 to Q4 2020).

• Automated and machine learning methods for content assessment and removal have grown in importance across platforms. This appears highest in areas such as Terrorism, Violent Graphic Content, Crime and Harmful Acts, and Arms and Ammunition.

Sourced from WFA