A long-standing advocate for natural non-retouched beauty standards, Dove is launching a new campaign #SpeakBeautiful to educate women about the tolerance and use of ethical language in social media. The beauty brand will continue fighting women’s low self-esteem, discouraging negative comments on their own and someone else’s looks.

This Sunday, during the Oskar night, Dove will test a new tracking technology that will react on negative comments on beauty and body images on Twitter. Social-media haters will receive non-automated advice from Dove experts on how to be tolerant and polite, while rethink fake beauty standards imposed by the fashion industry.

Prior to this campaign, the brand has conducted a new research about women’s self-esteem and virtual behavior in collaboration with the social media scholar and Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research,  Danah Boyd. The findings are, as follows:

• Just 9% admit to posting negative comments on Twitter and other social media.
• 80% of women write negative posts on social media about their own appearance.
• 82% of women agree that beauty standards imposed by the fashion industry are unrealistic.
• Women are more likely to post negative comments on beauty and body images than positive.

The researcher Danah Boyd comments:

“Social media is playing a critical role in showing and shaping how women and girls feel about themselves,” said danah boyd. “Yet, women do not realize how online dialogue can contribute to negative mindsets and behavior towards beauty both on and offline. We women have an incredible opportunity to be more thoughtful about how we speak about ourselves and others on social media.  The power is truly at our fingertips.”

The Unilever-owned skin and body care brand Dove started researching women’s self-esteem and beauty perception back in 2013, with the project Real Sketches of Beauty done in collaboration with Ogilvy Toronto.