Freudian Slip: Did Guardian Urge Two Tech Giants to ‘Promote Hate and Division’?

An otherwise ordinary article on British mainstream media website attracted the attention of netizens with the grammatical structure in one of its sentences, resulting in a hilarious ambiguity.

In a speech given by the Unilever chief marketing officer, where he notifies the company’s advertising platforms, such as Facebook and Google, of the necessity to get rid of toxic content, acquired quite a different meaning in The Guardian article featuring it. According to the article, which was published on February 12, Unilever is going to withdraw their funding from companies who fail to both “protect children” and “promote hate or division in society.” That is one serious phrasing fail.

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© Photo : theguardian.com

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Netizens on Twitter didn’t hesitate to react and have some fun at The Guardian’s vague wording:

Sorry, Grauniad, but this first paragraph really reads like Uniliver want Facebook to "promote hate and create division in society".
Maybe move the "fail" to the last item, rather than allow it to ambiguously hang over the whole list… 😂 @guardian

— Chris (@JKSLchris) 12 февраля 2018 г.

If they “fail to promote hate”?

— John (@byantium) 12 февраля 2018 г.