Brands Horrified When Their Twitter Ads Appear on Nazi Posts

Advertisers are still pulling out of Elon Musk's platform.

X-ing Out

At least two advertisers have pulled out of advertising on X-formerly-Twitter after finding that their ads appeared next to posts promoting Nazism.

That's despite X CEO Linda Yaccarino claiming mere days ago that the company was committed to protecting advertisers' brands on the platform, as CNN reports.

In a recent report, nonprofit news watchdog Media Matters for America found that ads of mainstream brands ran next to content celebrating Hitler and the Nazi Party — which shouldn't come as a surprise, considering the fast-and-loose governing of the platform by owner Elon Musk.

It's yet another sign that advertising on the platform has been an absolute mess ever since Musk took over the company last year, which is actively hurting the company's bottom line.

Explicitly Pro-Hitler

Last month, Musk admitted that X saw a nearly 50 percent drop in advertising revenue, which is at least in part due to the loosening of restrictions and reduction of moderation, leading to a flood of dubious and problematic content.

For instance, as Media Matters notes, X allowed an "explicitly pro-Hitler account to be active since November 2022," and "served countless ads on it," but only suspended it after the nonprofit published its report.

CNN found that affected brands include Adobe, New York University Langone Hospital, and pharmaceutical Gilead Sciences. Their ads were viewed hundreds of thousands of times while being displayed next to the fascist tweets.

Two brands — the NCTA Internet & Television Association, a prominent trade association, and Gilead — said they would immediately stop spending money on X ads following the publication of the report.

"We take the responsible placement of NCTA ads very seriously and are concerned that our post about the future of broadband technology appeared next to this highly disturbing content," an NCTA spokesperson told the broadcaster in a statement.

So where does all of this leave the financial viability of X? Yaccarino told CNBC in an interview last week that the company is "close to break-even" thanks to many advertisers returning, and that the company was committed to reducing the reach of "lawful" — read: possibly fascist — content without banning the accounts.

But whether willfully hosting Nazi content on the site will instill confidence in advertisers remains to be seen.

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