DDB New Zealand | Team Heroine

Insight:

Many of the world’s biggest sporting records are held by women. But when asked simple, non-gendered questions such as: “who has scored the most goals in international football?” search engines incorrectly favor popular male athletes, ignoring women’s achievements.

Algorithms have learned to tell us Cristiano Ronaldo’s 118 goals are superior to Christine Sinclair’s 190 goals, because that’s what they assume users want to see.

Correct The Internet is a United Nations (UN) backed initiative founded by Team Heroine to right the wrongs of the Internet. The campaign is built around a new online tool, developed to highlight over 50 incorrect searches that promote bias, allowing people to report the correct information on each one with just a couple of clicks, creating feedback reports for the search engines on a scale that forced them to take action.

Impact:

DDB New Zealand’s campaign reached over 1 billion people globally. It saw over 120 pieces of media coverage, including BBC, NBC, Fox News, Sky Sport, and Forbes. The initiative is now supported by over 50 global brands and has resulted in millions of people reporting to search engines through our tool, social channels, and the media.

Now, a problem that has existed within search engines for over a decade has new momentum and is being addressed.

Before Correct the Internet, the search results never showed sportswomen. Today, many are changing. And search engines are changing too, deploying new features that offer both male and female results – making the achievements of sportswomen visible to all who search for them.