Background
Summary of Council decision:
Three issues were investigated, all of which were Upheld.
Ad description
Two in-game ads for the mobile app game Jigsaw Puzzles: HD Puzzle Game:
a. The first ad, seen in the mobile app games Lily’s Garden and Pearl’s Peril on 28 November 2022, featured an animation of a child standing on a sharp spring. The spring was stuck in their foot and caused it to bleed. A car drove towards the child and a woman jumped and pushed the child out of the way. The car then drove on towards the woman and a crash was heard. The child was then seen crying, whilst their foot still bled, as they looked through a crowd gathered around. Later in the ad, the child was sat crying on a bed in a dingy, cold room. Items from the room were highlighted in speech-bubbles, and an on-screen hand auto-selected the bed. A partially completed jigsaw puzzle of a bed appeared on-screen, and the hand moved the remaining pieces to complete it. The bed that the child was sat on was then upgraded to a better bed.
b. The second ad, seen in the mobile app game Pearl’s Peril on 29 November 2022, featured a close-up animation of a child tearing skin off their finger causing it to bleed. The animation then cut to a scene of the child crying whilst a woman with a bandaged arm and leg, who was lying on a bed in a dingy, cold room, tended to the bleeding finger by removing a bandage from their own bloodied arm, revealing their own injury. Items from the room were highlighted in speech-bubbles, and an on-screen hand auto-selected the window. A partially completed jigsaw puzzle of the window appeared on-screen, and the hand moved the remaining pieces to complete it. The window in the room was then upgraded to a new window.
Issue
The complainant, who believed the ads promoted self-harm, challenged whether the ads:
1. were irresponsible; and
2. had been irresponsibly targeted.
3. The ASA challenged whether the ads were likely to cause serious or widespread offence.
Response
1., 2. & 3. Fuero Games Sp zoo (Fuero Games) did not respond to the ASA’s enquiries.
Tactile Games, the developers of the game ‘Lily’s Garden’ in which one of the ads was seen, said they took care to ensure that all ads served through their games were appropriate for the audiences. They blocked Jigsaw Puzzles: HD Puzzle Game from showing ads in ‘Lily’s Garden’ again.
Wooga, the developers of the game ‘Pearl’s Peril’ in which the ads were seen, said that they did not consider the ads to be appropriate nor suitable for their players and had started their own investigation. They confirmed that they had not received any complaints about the ads.
They did not review ad creatives in advance because ads were served through ad-networks. They believed that the ads were served through Unity Ads. They had blocked all ads by Fuero Games that were served through Unity Ads that they could access.
Unity Ads, an ad network, confirmed that they served ad (a) in Lily’s Garden and Pearl’s Peril on 28 November 2022. They said that they had served ab (b) in Pearl’s Peril, although that was not on 29 November 2022.
Their content policy did not permit ads that were excessively violent or shocking from being served through their network. This included content that depicted self-harm. The advertisers were responsible for the content of their ads. However, Unity voluntarily applied their own moderation process to most of the ads that were served through their network. Ads that were identified by their third-party moderation provider as containing restricted content were blocked from running on the ad network. They also determined whether an age restriction should be applied to an ad based on any sensitive content it contained.
They understood how, in isolation, a child stamping on a sharp spring and another child tearing skin off their finger could be seen as promoting self-harm. However, when the ads were viewed in their entirety, they did not believe that either ads breached the CAP Code or their own content policy.
They did not believe that ad (a) showed the child intentionally stamping on a spring to inflict self-harm. Rather, the child did not see the spring because they were walking in a low-visibility, snow-covered area, and they accidentally stepped on it. This was evidenced by the surprised noise the child made when inadvertently stepping on the spring. They also did not believe that ad (b) showed the child intentionally self-harming. Rather, the child was attempting to remove a hangnail and accidentally removed more skin than they had intended. Both scenes, along with the events that followed, were necessary to convey the puzzle games offerings to potential players.
They said they were reviewing their moderation decision for the ads.
Assessment
The ASA was concerned by Fuero Games Sp zoo’s lack of response and apparent disregard for the Code, which was a breach of CAP Code (Edition 12) rule 1.7 (Unreasonable delay). We reminded them of their responsibility to respond promptly to our enquiries and told them to do so in future.
1., 2. & 3. Upheld
Ad (a) featured an animation of a child standing on a sharp spring which caused their foot to bleed. Ad (b) featured an animation of a child pulling a long strip of skin off their finger which caused it to bleed. We accepted that the scenes in both ads reflected actual gameplay where players needed to complete jigsaw puzzles to improve the conditions of the rooms that the animated characters were in. Nonetheless, both ads depicted young children coming to physical harm to advertise mobile gameplay. Although the characters were computer animated, the depiction of their injuries was nonetheless graphic. Ad (b) also included a close-up depiction of a child self-harming. We considered that those depictions were likely to cause serious and widespread offence, particularly in the context of an ad for mobile app games. The ads were also likely to cause distress to some viewers.
We further considered that because the ads depicted children in hazardous situations and behaving dangerously, in a context other than safety, the ads also breached the Code in that regard.
In addition, notwithstanding that the ads breached the Code for the reasons mentioned above, we had not seen evidence that the advertiser had taken steps to target the ads away from those under-18 years of age.
We therefore concluded that the ads were irresponsible and breached the Code.
The ads breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 1.3 (Social responsibility), 4.1, 4.2, 4.5 (Harm and offence), 5.1 and 5.1.2 (Children).
Action
The ads must not appear again in their current forms. We told Fuero Games Sp zoo to ensure that their ads were socially responsible and did not contain anything that was likely to cause serious or widespread offence, or cause distress without justifiable reasons, including by featuring depictions of children being harmed. We referred the matter to the CAP Compliance team.
