The online retailer Temu has had an advert banned for sexualising a child.
It showed a girl aged between eight and 11 wearing a bikini in a pose that was “was quite adult for a girl of her age”, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said. It banned four other adverts for showing sexual images and pictures which objectified women.
Temu said the picture of the child violated their marketing policy and would not be shown again. It disputed the other complaints but all were ruled to be inappropriate by the ASA.
Temu is a Chinese-owned online marketplace where sellers can upload pictures of their products.
The sellers have to follow rules against using pornographic, obscene or harassing pictures. Since its UK launch earlier in 2023, Temu has become known for its wide range of products which are advertised at cheap prices.
It told the ASA that it has over a million photos uploaded to its Google Ads account but that it “did not get to decide the specific products advertised,” or where they were shown.
The images which received complaints included those of women's torsos in low-cut dresses, a grey jockstrap and padded cycling underwear. The ASA ruled that the jockstrap emphasised “the outline of the genitalia” while the cycling shorts “appeared as underwear with the bottom cut out”.
The pictures of the dresses, which did not show the models' faces, meant “the women were presented as stereotypical sexual objects”.
Furthermore, pictures of a facial roller and balloon ties “were phallic in shape and appeared sexual in nature” when shown alongside the other ads. The ads were shown on a local news website, a chess website, a translation site and a puzzle app.
Temu said that the pictures of the models with their faces cut off were not meant to objectify women and argued that other retail platforms showed similar photos. It also argued that the pictures of the other objects were accurate representations of the products on sale.
The chess website and the news website said that they would not advertise Temu products again.
The ASA said it had told Temu to make sure its future adverts were “prepared with a sense of responsibility to consumers and to society”. It has also told the company that under-18s should not be shown in a sexual way and that ads should be responsibly targeted.
— CutC by bbc.com
