The Guide Includes Different Methods for Restriction

By Jessica Whitehouse,
Editor at online-gambling.com

Jessica Whitehouse Editor at online-gambling.com

Jessica Whitehouse is a content expert and editor from Santa Monica, California. At online-gambling.com, she focuses on roulette, blackjack reviews, lottery, and casino payments. Whitehouse is also our leading go-to expert in online gambling in South Africa. In addition, she provides the photo materials for most articles on the site.

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Last updated: February 6, 2020

The UK Gambling Commission has teamed up with Twitter in order to create guidelines on how gambling content across the internet can be restricted.

Twitter User © Free-Photos/Pixabay

The guide is required to explain the multiple methods for modifying Twitter’s security tools and settings in an individual account, that is expected to ‘help mitigate the risk of exposure to gambling-related messages and advertisements.’

While Twitter is the first to partner with the project with the UKGC, the commission has announced plans to work with other social media sites to carry out similar guidelines. Neil McArthur, Chief Executive of the Commission, expressed his worries to the gambling industry last October about the distribution of gambling ads to teenagers, youth and vulnerable people.

“Advertising spend has surged over recent years with young people and vulnerable adults being exposed to significant levels of online gambling adverts and via social media. 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.” – explained McArthur his concerns.

He also added that these guidelines about how to improve the advertisement of the gambling industry, the collaboration with Twitter will help to limit the gambling-related content users see on the platform.

The Ultimate Goal is to Protect the Users

Head of UK Public Policy at Twitter, Katy Minshall, explained that improving public discourse wellbeing is their overarching goal, as it is to make sure that those on the platform feel safe and protected.

She added that with that in mind, they continue to enforce these policies, explicitly on banned and limited ad content as well as reviewing the validity of advertising on their site, these policies extend to all Twitter advertisers and advertisements. Minshall explained that they also will continue working on the tools with strategic partners to endorse their responsible objectives in advertising.

The guidance will include content regarding Managing ‘interests’ within a profile; Turning off notifications; Using the mute feature; and how to limit betting advertising.

Twitter Enjoys Huge Popularity

The UK Gambling Commission is one of the rare, if not the only one, that has decided to take this step in raising awareness about the advertisement of gambling on social media channels. Most of the people spend their free time interacting with other users and viewing content on social media networks thus is important to limit their exposure to gambling advertisement in order to avoid indirectly ‘involving people in gambling addiction’.

As already mentioned, the UK Gambling Commission has the intention to expand this guideline to other social media platforms similar to Twitter. On the other hand, Twitter has shown its goodwill to help its own users protect their own mental health and at the same time helped the UK Gambling Commission in its mission to raise awareness and create an interesting social media guide in terms of content related to the gambling industry.

Twitter has been on the market for 14 years already, founded in 2006 with headquarters in San Francisco. In February 2019 it counted 321 million active users.