Correct the Internet fixed gender-biased search results via feedback loops

Team Heroine, a women's sport marketing consultancy, discovered that searching for the world's top international goal scorer returned Cristiano Ronaldo — while Christine Sinclair actually holds the record with 190 goals. The bias wasn't in the sport; it was in the algorithms trained on biased content.

With DDB New Zealand, it created Correct the Internet, a UN-backed initiative built around a tool that documented 50+ incorrect, male-skewing search results and let anyone report the correct information using each engine's own feedback function.

A film, posters and an education pack amplified the campaign, using a bold orange-and-black activist visual language, and the tool logged corrections directly into the platforms' correction systems — making the internet's own machinery the medium.

Make the platform's feedback loop the campaign medium

The feedback loop made each correction a permanent fix inside the platform.

A striking wrong answer gave the campaign a fact everyone could feel.

UN backing gave the initiative authority beyond any single brand.

The tool scaled the cause beyond one campaign's reach.

Don't fight the platform — exploit its correction mechanism; a system that lets users report errors becomes free distribution for your cause.

The initiative joined international enquiries into misinformation and gave a decades-old problem new momentum; search engines began deploying features that highlight women's sport and show both male and female results. Correct the Internet was shortlisted for the Glass award at Spikes Asia 2024 and entered in the D&AD Annual 2024.