Australians are becoming more concerned about swearing and sex, but are less conservative about heath and safety in advertising, research by the Advertising Standards Bureau suggests. The ASB also found attitudes to social media varied widely.

The ASB has released the latest findings from its annual research into community perceptions of advertising. Compared with the view of Ad Standard’s Board, the public were more concerned with the use of bad language than they were about many other issues.

It found that 64% of people survey found the term “bullshit” to be unacceptable, while 49% and 58% of people objected to the terms “wtf” and “an incompletely bleeped out ‘fuck'” respectively.

The research, carried out every year since 2007, is a sense check to ensure the rulings of the Board are aligned to the attitudes of the general public as well as being within the ethical guidelines set by the ANAA.

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The survey also found that people objected to an ad that ran on the side of buses, featuring a topless woman lying on a fur rug, although her breasts weren’t visible. 59% of people agreed with the Board that this type of image was a concern, especially given the exposure of sexually explicit advertising to children.

For the first time the Board investigated the community’s view of legislation of ads relating to social media. A total of 44% of the community agreed with the Board view that an ad making light of Facebook stalking contravened guidelines, but only 29% of those surveyed agreed with the Board’s ruling against an advertisement featuring a man uploading images of a dog and tagging them as his friend’s girlfriend.

The community felt that racial stereotypes and depictions of violence were judged to be of low level of concern, with only 28% agreeing that a racist stereotype used in what was intended to be humorous context was unacceptable, and 26% agreeing with the Board’s view on a ad featuring implied domestic violence, again in a humour context.