At least two brands have said they will suspend advertising on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, after their ads and those of other companies were run on an account promoting fascism. The issue came less than a week after X CEO Linda Yaccarino publicly affirmed the company鈥檚 commitment to brand safety for advertisers.
The nonprofit news watchdog Media Matters for America documented in a report published Wednesday that ads for a host of mainstream brands have been run on the account, which has shared content celebrating Hitler and the Nazi Party.
Ads for brands including Adobe, Gilead Sciences, the University of Maryland鈥檚 football team, New York University Langone Hospital and NCTA-The Internet and Television Association were run alongside tweets from the account that had garnered hundreds of thousands of views, CNN observed.
Spokespeople for NCTA and pharmaceutical company Gilead said that they immediately paused their ad spending on X after CNN flagged their ads on the pro-Nazi account.
鈥淲e 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,鈥 NCTA spokesperson Brian Dietz said in a statement, adding that the organization had opted into X鈥檚 brand safety measures including keyword restrictions and limiting its ad placement to the 鈥渉ome feed of target audiences.鈥
鈥淏rand safety will remain an utmost priority for NCTA, which means suspending advertising on Twitter/X for the foreseeable future and heavily limiting NCTA鈥檚 organic presence on the platform,鈥 Dietz said.
A spokesperson for Gilead said the company will pause its ad spending while X investigates the issue.
Jason Yellin, University of Maryland鈥檚 associate athletic director, expressed concern about the placement of the football team鈥檚 post on the account and said Maryland Football has not spent money on advertising on X since 2021, meaning X may have promoted the post despite it not being a paid ad.
A spokesperson for NYU Langone said in a statement that the hospital was 鈥渃ompletely surprised by this and are extremely concerned with any appearance of our advertising and brand next to obviously objectionable content that promotes hatred,鈥 adding that it expects its advertising partners to 鈥渁ct responsibly.鈥
Hours after the Media Matters report was published Wednesday morning and CNN observed additional brands鈥 ads running on the account, the account appeared to be suspended.
X on Wednesday ran an investigation of the profile and found ad impressions on the page were minimal, according to the company.
Adobe did not immediately respond to requests for comment from CNN.
The issue comes as X has been trying to lure advertisers back to the platform after many left in the wake of Elon Musk鈥檚 takeover of the company last fall over concerns about content moderation, mass layoffs and general uncertainty over the platform鈥檚 direction. Musk said last month that the company still had negative cash flow because of a nearly 50% drop in its core advertising revenue.
Yaccarino 鈥 who joined the company in June, just ahead of a major rebrand from Twitter to X 鈥 told CNBC in her first public interview as chief executive last week that many of the platform鈥檚 advertisers have returned and that the company is 鈥渃lose to break-even.鈥 She touted the company鈥檚 鈥渇reedom of speech, not freedom of reach鈥 policy, which aims to limit the reach of so-called lawful but awful content on the platform and to protect brands from having their ads appear alongside such content.
X last week said it had rolled out additional brand safety controls for advertisers, including the ability to avoid having their ads show next to 鈥渢argeted hate speech, sexual content, gratuitous gore, excessive profanity, obscenity, spam, drugs.鈥 In addition to human content moderation reviewers that monitor for content that violates the platform鈥檚 rules, X says it has automated software that determines where and how ads are placed on the platform.
鈥淵our ads will only air next to content that is appropriate for you,鈥 Yaccarino said during last week鈥檚 interview.
But Wednesday鈥檚 report suggests that the company still has work to do if it wants to avoid monetizing, and placing ads alongside, objectionable content. 鈥淢edia Matters and other observers have documented how X has remained a dangerous cesspool of content, especially for advertisers,鈥 Wednesday鈥檚 report states. Media Matters says it has also documented instances of brands鈥 ads being placed next to content from Holocaust denial and white nationalist accounts.
No brands had specifically targeted the pro-Nazi account identified in Wednesday鈥檚 report for their advertisements, according to X.
While she did not publicly comment on the ads appearing alongside pro-Nazi content, Yaccarino did post on X Wednesday that, 鈥淪ensitivity Settings is live globally in the X Ads Manager 鈥 making it even simpler for all advertisers to find the right balance between reach and suitability.鈥
X says it is looking into expanding its brand safety controls to apply at the profile level.
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Donald Trump returned to North Carolina on Saturday, stumping in the southern battleground state with direct appeals to women, claiming he would be a better champion for them than U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, who is vying to become the first female president.
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Lethbridge County has rescinded its fire restriction as a result of the recent cool, wet weathr.
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Jim Lester鈥檚 farm hopped on the cow-cuddling trend in early August, and his time slots have been pretty well sold out ever since.
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