Ever been hit with a trivia question about who has scored the most goals in international football? While an internet search will likely tell you it is Cristiano Ronaldo, it’s actually women’s footballer, Christine Sinclair.
To highlight these inconsistencies with searchable facts that disadvantage sportswomen DDB Aotearoa has created a new campaign called “Correct The Internet” – a collective work of an international group of like-minded people looking to highlight and correct inaccuracies in internet search results and make sportswomen more visible as a result.
“Many of the world’s leading athletes are women. Many of the world’s sporting records are held by women,” said Rebecca Sowden, former New Zealand Football Fern.
“But when people search online for factual sporting information about athletes, the results favour the sportsmen, even when the sportswomen have greater statistics.”
Paul Spain, futurist and CEO, Gorilla Technology added: “Search engine algorithms draw on human created content, designed to give us what we are looking for, instantly. Because search engines take so much notice of what is made popular by major publishers, social media platforms and content creators, search results will reflect certain peoples or organisations inherent preferences. This can lead to biased search results that include information that is not factually correct.”
The campaign has garnered the support of many well-known athletes and high-profile sporting organisations including English rugby’s Red Roses’ player, Shaunagh Brown, and Football Fern Meikayla Moore, and is supported by Women in Sport Aotearoa, Ngā Wāhine Hākinakina o Aotearoa (WISPA), Women Sport Australia and New Zealand Football.
The only way to correct the algorithm is through the power of the people and Correct The Internet wants to empower people to help ensure accurate information is delivered to all of us. Let’s do this for future sports people everywhere,” said Brown.
Meikayla Moore added: “This campaign is prefaced on not continuing to pitch women against men, but to correct and highlight incorrect searchable facts that have lacked consistency and accuracy leading to disadvantages for sportswomen across the globe.
“I feel it’s important for those that have achieved these amazing statistics but also for all those witnessing such brilliance. Women are heroes, let’s recognise them for it and remove learnt bias, empowering and inspiring the next generation.”
The team behind Correct The Internet has identified numerous factual inconsistencies and has created a tool that makes sending feedback easy for anyone to execute with just a couple of clicks.
The tool is hosted on www.correcttheinternet.com. The public can visit the site to send a feedback message to search engines notifying them of their incorrect search results and providing the correct information.
Credits
Agency: DDB Group Aotearoa
Production: FINCH
Director: Lex Hodge
Managing Director/Executive Producer: Corey Esse
Executive Producer: Rebekah Kelly
Producer: Sarah Cook
DOP: Gin Loane
Second Camera: Ben Rowsell
Art Director: Sam Evans
Casting: Catch/FINCH
Post House for Edit: Atticus
Editor: Jack Hutchings
Post House for Grade: Atticus
Colourist: Pete Richie
Post House for VFX: Atticus
Lead VFX artist: Stu Bedford
Sound Company: Liquid Studios
Sound Person: Craig Matuschka
Music Company: Liquid Studios
Composer: Peter Van der Fluit
Partner and Supporters
Correct the Internet – Founding Partner: Rebecca Sowden
Team Heroine | Supporter of Football For the Goals: Rebecca Sowden
New Zealand Football
Women in Sport Aotearoa [WISPA]
Women in Sport Australia
Fearless Women
Eden Park
Mediaworks
PHD
Warner Discovery
Phantom Billstickers
TVNZ
UN Department of Global Communications – Outreach Division: Maher Nasser
