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Comment by gypsy_boots | Hacker News Reader

I find it hard to believe that Unilever really ‘cares’ about any of these issues so I’m chalking this up to virtue signaling. Really just seems like posturing more than anything

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They are complaining about "toxic content directed at children". We are talking about the worlds biggest ice cream manufacturer, they own brands like Lipton who make billions from sugar water with ads like these Muppet animations targeted at children gulping it straight from the bottle:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8n-BF5lrnQ

Once those kids are fat teenagers, they own Axe of course, infamous peddlers of archaic gender role pushing crap like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpPJjgIfRkI

So yeah, the first step on making responsible ads for the internet is banning these particular vermins at Unilever.

It could also be virtue signaling as a smoke screen for something related, but less prosocial. The article used the word "divisive" in its first sentence, and while that doesn't appear to be Unilever's word, it might be more accurate than the words Unilever used. I don't see them caring about the actual issues, but I can certainly imagine them caring about boycotts. And making ad-supported content "less divisive" does seem like a good way to avoid those.

Presumably they're making noise to get them to improve price, quality or both. Or possibly hoping that companies elsewhere will approach them with other offers.

I'm not sure a giant corporation like Unilever can "care" in some deep philosophical sense, but as long as their customers care they will react.

They don't, really. See any of the ads of Axe which is owned by them.

I can believe they legitimately don't want their products presented next to objectionable content, but not because they care, they just don't want people associating them with it.

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