Third most popular party in Finland, Finns Party, has its political ad banned from cinema chain due to racism.

The cinema chain Finnkino has refused to air this elaborate advert from the immigration-critical party Finns Party (Perussuomalaiset) just before the parliamentary election in Finland.

The ad, which is six minutes long and could use a better colour grading, tells the story of current Finland in comic book style.  In the story, three villains who represent journalists, politicians and unscrupulous businessmen take bribes from foreign powers as they sell out the country making it unsafe for women and children. It's quite the Gotham City dramatic story, as girls are kidnapped and cars are torched. The regular Finnish man's irritation grows so much, it spawns a mythical creature of revenge born from the earth in the forests. A bit Marvel, a bit Kalevala, and very very long. 

The video has been posted in full on Youtube, both in English and in Finnish, it was shared on the parties various social media platforms five days ago. Tuesday it was announced that they can no longer air it on the AMC owned cinema chain Finnkino, and the ad was pulled immediately.  In a statement on Twitter, the cinema chain explains why:

"Finnkino stands up for tolerance, freedom of expression and democracy and does not accept racism or discrimination"

Critics in media said the ad has "crossed the line", and now that it is pulled, some critics on the other side say the ban is undemocratic. They point out that the ad calls specifically for people to get out and vote, not for violence, as the mythical creature doesn't exist but voting does. The Finn's party is currently up in polls ahead of the April election, they are at 15.1%, making it the third most popular party.

The ad is still as of this writing, airing on some TV channels. 
 

Related, back in 2010 the Sweden Democrats had this political ad banned from TV and cinema. In 2015 this Subway poster campaign was retroactively banned after a minor riot broke out and a crowd tore the posters down. The transport media company decided against putting posters back up so that people wouldn't hurt themselves trying to tear them down.

Update:

At the time of our press, all articles that we can read, including Yle.fi's English version here stated that the ad was pulled:

Helsingin Sanomat reports that cinema chain Finnkino stopped showing a Finns’ Party ad campaign at its cinemas on Tuesday. The six-minute long video depicts politicians and journalists taking bribes and foreigners preying on women and children.

However, since then we've been sent this article, also from Yle.fi - but it is in Finnish. I can gather that they speak to Riikka Slunga-Poutsalo from the Finns Party. She explains their media buy contract includes a certain amount of 'views', but the short edit was only planned to air a few days in March. The invoice states 18–24. March. She also expresses that she is astonished by Finnkino's announcement to end the party's election video as an advertisement in cinemas from 26 March, since there was nothing to end.

In conclusion, either Yle.fi English and/or Finnkino cinemas got their facts about the airdates wrong when making the statement regarding ending the campaign, or, someone may trying to cover up after getting too many complaints about airing the ad. At this point, it's anyone's guess.

Adland® is supported by your donations alone. You can help us out by buying us a Ko-Fi coffee.
Anonymous Adgrunt's picture
comment_node_story
Files must be less than 1 MB.
Allowed file types: jpg jpeg gif png wav avi mpeg mpg mov rm flv wmv 3gp mp4 m4v.
Cpt.Dens's picture

They didn't pull the ad. The campaign ended according to their contract. Besides racism wasn't the issue here, but violence against political figures being portrayed in the ad. Get your facts straight before posting

Olli's picture

The ad was not pulled or banned. The airing was scheduled to end on Mar 26th according to plan. Not because Finnkino suddently decided to ban it.

J.J's picture

This story has started to live it's own story. Finnkino haven't banned the advertisement. They stopped showing as the contract was to show it only certain number of times.

Tomi from Finland's picture

Actually, the ad campaign ended that day. They didn't stop air it because of alleged racism. Fake news?

Sir.ElmoSanders's picture

a well known politician would say this: " You are fake news"

Dabitch's picture

At this point I wish people will read the entire article before making a comment.

Miikka's picture

YLE has a significant leftist bias and they have been known to report wrongly about political topics and racism and immigration-related topics. I suspect that it was the YLE reporter that intentionally twisted the story to hurt the Finns party's election campaign, and to smear on them.

Dabitch's picture

So what you're saying is... Yle.fi is the fake news?

Sport's picture

There's a twist.

Sport's picture

Even the Helsinki Times reported the same thing.

"A CONTENTIOUS CAMPAIGN AD of the Finns Party has been pulled from the cinemas of Finnkino.

The Finnish cinema chain announced yesterday it will discontinue screening the ad at its cinemas across the country on Tuesday, emphasising that it defends tolerance, democracy and freedom of speech and approves of neither racism nor discrimination."

Se link:
http://www.helsinkitimes.fi/finland/finland-news/domestic/16292-finnkino-pulls-controversial-campaign-ad-by-finns-party.html

I wonder where all these non-account people so desperate to shout fake news came from. It seems rather co-ordinated.

Perhaps they funnelled here in frustration of not being able to comment on news articles in other places. An open comment box is a rare thing these days, evern rarer is the author graciously responding.

Dabitch's picture

Yeah "will discontinue screening the ad" certainly implies that they otherwise would have, and not "the media buy was already completed". Strange story this.

Svindlare's picture

Silencing people with different opinions is not a victory but a postponement.