Three months after it debuted on YouTube, a Call of Duty advertisement promoting Black Ops 7 has been banned in the UK for "alluding to non-consensual penetration."
The following contains descriptions of the advertisement in question that some readers may find upsetting.
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), the UK's advertising regulator, issued the ban on February 16. In its ruling, the agency found that after careful review, the ad "generated humor by the humiliation and implied threat of painful, non-consensual penetration of the man, an act associated with sexual violence." The ASA continued, saying, "Because the ad alluded to non-consensual penetration, and framed it as an entertaining scenario, we considered that the ad trivialised sexual violence and was therefore irresponsible and offensive."
The ad was posted to the official Call of Duty YouTube channel on November 6, 2025. Titled "The Replacer 'Airport Security,'" the ad sees two airport security agents "replacing" people who decided to stay at home and play the new Call of Duty: Black Ops 7. (Because you need the full game name in there.) A guy gets "randomly selected to be manhandled" after getting his watch confiscated, and one of the agents demands he remove all his clothes because the other, with latex gloves on, is "going in dry." There's a pill bottle; the guy gets told to "bite down" on the baton. You can guess how this goes.
Since its YouTube debut, the advertisement has also appeared on on-demand services operated by Channel 5 and ITV. At the time, according to the ASA's new ruling, Clearcast approved the ad. The organization, which reviews advertisements for broadcasting in the UK, gave it an "ex-kids" timing restriction, which blocked it from appearing during or around children's programming or anything intended for younger audiences.
The ASA and Clearcast both understood that the ad contained exaggerated humor, stating it depicted a "deliberately implausible, parodic scenario that bore no resemblance to real airport security procedures." However, after receiving nine different complaints about the acts depicted in the ad, the ASA has pulled it, saying it must never appear in the UK again in its current form.
When reached for comment, Activision Blizzard pointed GameSpot to the response it gave to the ASA in its new ruling. The company said that the ad was "targeted at adult audiences only, who had a higher tolerance for irreverent or exaggerated humour." It also denied any sexual innuendo or sexual violence in the ad, saying it "did not sexualise the act of performing searches and contained no implication that the acts were sexual" at all.
"The 'bite down' line referred to discomfort rather than ***, and that the person remained clothed and in the same checkpoint setting, which they said underlined that no strip search or nudity occurred," Activision Blizzard said. "[E]ven if some viewers inferred innuendo, the ad contained no explicit content or objectifying imagery. [T]he searched individual appeared bewildered rather than distressed, supporting a comedic tone rather than harm or abuse. [T]he ad did not depict sexual violence or an invasive strip search, and there was no indication the characters gained sexual gratification. [T]he 'Replacers' were depicted as absurd caricatures whose incompetence and inappropriateness were the basis of the humour, not role models."
As a result, the ASA concluded that Call of Duty advertisements from Activision Blizzard going forward must be " socially responsible and [do] not cause serious offence, for example by trivialising sexual violence."
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The following contains descriptions of the advertisement in question that some readers may find upsetting.
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), the UK's advertising regulator, issued the ban on February 16. In its ruling, the agency found that after careful review, the ad "generated humor by the humiliation and implied threat of painful, non-consensual penetration of the man, an act associated with sexual violence." The ASA continued, saying, "Because the ad alluded to non-consensual penetration, and framed it as an entertaining scenario, we considered that the ad trivialised sexual violence and was therefore irresponsible and offensive."
The ad was posted to the official Call of Duty YouTube channel on November 6, 2025. Titled "The Replacer 'Airport Security,'" the ad sees two airport security agents "replacing" people who decided to stay at home and play the new Call of Duty: Black Ops 7. (Because you need the full game name in there.) A guy gets "randomly selected to be manhandled" after getting his watch confiscated, and one of the agents demands he remove all his clothes because the other, with latex gloves on, is "going in dry." There's a pill bottle; the guy gets told to "bite down" on the baton. You can guess how this goes.
Since its YouTube debut, the advertisement has also appeared on on-demand services operated by Channel 5 and ITV. At the time, according to the ASA's new ruling, Clearcast approved the ad. The organization, which reviews advertisements for broadcasting in the UK, gave it an "ex-kids" timing restriction, which blocked it from appearing during or around children's programming or anything intended for younger audiences.
The ASA and Clearcast both understood that the ad contained exaggerated humor, stating it depicted a "deliberately implausible, parodic scenario that bore no resemblance to real airport security procedures." However, after receiving nine different complaints about the acts depicted in the ad, the ASA has pulled it, saying it must never appear in the UK again in its current form.
When reached for comment, Activision Blizzard pointed GameSpot to the response it gave to the ASA in its new ruling. The company said that the ad was "targeted at adult audiences only, who had a higher tolerance for irreverent or exaggerated humour." It also denied any sexual innuendo or sexual violence in the ad, saying it "did not sexualise the act of performing searches and contained no implication that the acts were sexual" at all.
"The 'bite down' line referred to discomfort rather than ***, and that the person remained clothed and in the same checkpoint setting, which they said underlined that no strip search or nudity occurred," Activision Blizzard said. "[E]ven if some viewers inferred innuendo, the ad contained no explicit content or objectifying imagery. [T]he searched individual appeared bewildered rather than distressed, supporting a comedic tone rather than harm or abuse. [T]he ad did not depict sexual violence or an invasive strip search, and there was no indication the characters gained sexual gratification. [T]he 'Replacers' were depicted as absurd caricatures whose incompetence and inappropriateness were the basis of the humour, not role models."
As a result, the ASA concluded that Call of Duty advertisements from Activision Blizzard going forward must be " socially responsible and [do] not cause serious offence, for example by trivialising sexual violence."
Source