The Gambling Commission has partnered with Twitter to create guidance aimed at supporting users who want to limit the amount of gambling-related content they see on the social media platform. The guidance explains the different ways in which Twitter’s safety tools and settings can be adjusted within an individual account, to help mitigate the risk of exposure to gambling-related messaging and advertisements. This year the Gambling Commission is also looking to produce similar guidance for users of other social media platforms. Twitter is the first to work with the Gambling Commission on this initiative.
In the guidance you are shown how you can control on various levels:
- Manage ‘interests’ within a profile; interests are comprised of a list of keywords, associated to an individual’s Twitter activity.
- Turn off notifications; this prevents the user from receiving notifications from certain types of accounts they’d like to avoid (such as a sports account).
- Use the mute feature; this enables a user to have greater control over what they can and can’t see on Twitter by ensuring certain words, accounts and conversations are no longer visible.
In October 2019 the Commission’s chief executive Neil McArthur raised his concerns to the gambling industry around the exposure of gambling adverts to children, young people and vulnerable adults. He has encouraged gambling businesses to embrace advertising technology and be more socially responsible.
“This level of exposure is a concern and I have challenged the industry to quickly accelerate opportunities to reduce the amount of advertising seen by young people, children and vulnerable adults across all digital platforms. Whilst we work on a plan which sets out new standards for how the industry will embrace advertising technology, I hope that this guidance will play a role in helping consumers to limit the gambling-related content they see on Twitter.”
Katy Minshall, Head of UK Public Policy at Twitter, said: “Improving the health of the public conversation is our overall mission as is ensuring those on the service feel safe and supported. With that in mind, we’re continuing to enforce our policies, specifically around prohibited and restricted ad content as well as assessing the eligibility of ads on our service – these policies apply to all advertisers and advertisements on Twitter.”
This is another example of how the Commission is upping the ante with regards to advertisements/publishing of gambling specific offers and exposure to gambling on social media.
Click on the following link to download the guidance document https://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/PDF/Twitter-consumer-guide.pdf