Lego ends Daily Mail toy giveaway after protest on migrant coverage

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The maker of multi-coloured Lego building bricks tweeted Saturday ‘@StopFundingHate We have finished the agreement with the Daily Mail’. File photo: AP

Published: 3:43pm, 13 Nov 2016Updated: 10:06pm, 13 Nov 2016

Danish toymaker Lego said it would stop giving away free toys with Britain’s Daily Mail, following a campaign to stop advertising in newspapers accused of discrimination in their coverage of migrants.

Lego has been criticised by Stop Funding Hate, an online campaign, for cooperating with the Daily Mail – a newspaper it accuses of portraying migrants negatively and spurring hatred before and after Britain’s June referendum on EU membership.

“We have finished the agreement with the Daily Mail and are not planning any future promotional activity with the newspaper,” the company wrote on Twitter in response to tweets by Stop Funding Hate.

In 2014, the Danish company said it would not renew its contract with oil group Shell whose logo was on Lego sets sold at gas stations in Europe. The move came after weeks of pressure following a video against oil drilling in the Arctic region. File photo: AP

The campaign says it “aims to tackle the culture of hate, demonisation and division that is poisoning our political discourse” and seeks support to persuade advertisers to pull their support of the Sun, Daily Mail and Daily Express newspapers.

Lego declined to specify the reason for ending its cooperation with the Daily Mail, but said in an email that it spends “a lot of time listening to what children have to say. And when parents and grandparents take the time to let us know how they feel, we always listen just as carefully.”