Infographic: Mental Health, Menopause And Weight Loss Ads Targeted By ASA's AI Monitoring System

Consumer health, particularly food supplements that make unauthorized medical or health claims, has been a key area of focus for the UK Advertising Standards Authority's recently introduced Active Ad Monitoring system, which captures ads by relevant advertisers from a range of social media platforms, and applies machine learning algorithms to identify and flag likely non-compliant ads, which are then sent to experts to review and act on. This infographic highlights recent ASA rulings against ads for supplements claiming to treat anxiety and stress, menopause, autism/ADHD and weight loss, which were flagged by AI.

Complaints
• Source: Shutterstock: ESB Professional

Since 2021, the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority has been scaling up its Active Ad Monitoring system, which captures ads by relevant advertisers from a range of social media platforms, and applies machine learning algorithms to identify and flag likely non-compliant ads, which are then sent to experts to review and act on.

How The UK's ASA Is Using AI To Monitor Online Advertising At Scale
Unauthorized medical or health claims for dietary supplements are a key focus area for the UK advertising regulator's new AI-powered Active Ad monitoring system. HBW Insight speaks to the ASA’s head of data science, Adam Davison, in this exclusive interview to find out more about the organization's journey towards pre-emptive regulation. 
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Consumer health has been one of these key problem areas for the system – which now processes more than two million ads a month – particularly food supplements that make unauthorized medical or health claims. 

“Earlier this year, for the first time, we started to do very broad searches of ads that make medical or health related claims,” the ASA’s head of data science, Adam Davison, explained in an recently-published HBW Insight interview (see side bar). 

“And this raised a selection of issues that weren't necessarily prevalent in the complaints we received from the public, but when we looked at them, we thought they were significant areas that needed more attention.”

As the following infographic shows, this has resulted in a number of rulings in the last two months against ads for supplements claiming to treat anxiety and stress, menopause, autism/ADHD and weight loss.

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