TfL pulls “Act Like a Friend” advert after ASA stereotype ruling
On Wednesday, the UK’s advertising regulator ruled that a TfL advert reinforced a harmful racial stereotype, prompting the authority to withdraw the shortened clip from its safety campaign across the capital.
The Advertising Standards Authority said the Facebook advert, part of TfL’s “Act Like a Friend” campaign, was irresponsible and likely to cause serious offence when viewed on its own.
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Read the storyThe video showed a black teenage boy verbally harassing a white girl on a bus while another white teenage boy sat close beside her. The regulator concluded that the clip presented the black boy as the only aggressor and did not clearly depict the second boy as jointly intimidating the victim.
How the regulator assessed the advert
TfL told the ASA that the clip was one of three short social media edits taken from a two-minute film. The other versions showed white males committing hate crimes against different victims. The authority said most Facebook users would have seen a mixture of the three videos rather than one in isolation.
The ASA rejected that argument. It said viewers could encounter a single advert without the others and assessed the complaint on that basis. The regulator noted the established stereotype linking black males with threatening behaviour and concluded that the shortened version risked reinforcing that association.
TfL response and wider campaign
The complaint was upheld and the advert must not appear again in its current form. The regulator also instructed TfL to avoid repeating harmful stereotypes in future campaigns.
A TfL spokesperson said the organisation aimed to ensure its advertising reflected London’s diverse population and did not perpetuate stereotypes. The spokesperson added that the social media edit fell below the authority’s usual standards when separated from the full film.
The wider campaign was launched across cinemas, ITVX and the transport network, encouraging passengers to intervene safely if they witness sexual harassment or hate crime.
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