Summary: The GARM Aggregated Measurement Report

GARM recently published Volume 5 of the GARM Aggregated Measurement Report on platform transparency, which aims to help marketers and agencies address investment considerations around content safety.

The four core questions the report examines are:

1. How safe is the platform for consumers?
2. How safe is the platform for advertisers?
3. How effective is the platform in policy enforcement?
4. How does the platform perform in correcting mistakes?

Participating platforms:

Below is a summary of key findings from the report.

• Consumer Safety is improving according to user safety metrics. Trends over time show a decrease in violative content. The benchmarks show 4 out of 6 measures decrease and 2 out of 6 measures stay constant.

• Individual safety, group hate, and graphic violence are focal points for the industry relative to actions taken. The last report highlighted the prevalence of two categories: Adult & Explicit Sexual Content, and Spam or Malware. Beyond those 2 areas, this wave reveals increasing activity around the next 5 categories:

1. 1. Crime & Harmful Acts to Individuals and Society, Human Rights Violations
   2. Death, Injury or Military Conflict
   3. Online Piracy
   4. Hate Speech & Acts of Aggression
   5. Obscenity And Profanity, Including Language, Gestures, And Explicitly Gory, Graphic or Repulsive Content Intended to Shock and Disgust

• Platform enforcement showed a 13% increase in content removals, trending toward the “Crime & Harmful Acts” category. However, account removals declined by -16%. Platform shifts in enforcement are driven by the severity and frequency of the violation. The content categories are listed below, and the table linking them to each platform’s policies are in the report appendix.

1. 1. Adult & Explicit Sexual Content
   2. Arms & Ammunition
   3. Crime & Harmful acts to individuals and Society, Human Right Violations
   4. Death, Injury or Military Conflict
   5. Hate speech & acts of aggression
   6. Obscenity and Profanity, including language, gestures, and explicitly gory, graphic or repulsive content intended to shock and disgust
   7. Illegal drugs, tobacco, e-cigarettes, vaping
   8. Spam & Malware
   9. Terrorism
   10. Debated Sensitive Social Issues
   11. Other: Any categories not specifically accounted for in the above (e.g. multiple policy violations))

Download the full report on the World Federation of Advertisers website.