Twitter Can’t Seem to Buck Its Advertisers-Don’t-Want-to-Be-Seen-Next-to-Nazis Problem
Twitter, now X, has totally rebranded under Elon Musk, but it turns out the social media company’s advertising problems—namely that many brands don’t want to be seen on a site that gives space to neo-Nazi and white nationalist accounts—haven’t gone away. On Wednesday, two more brands—the NCTA, a television trade association, and the pharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences—suspended their advertising on the platform, spokespeople for the brands told CNN. The news followed a Media Matters report that found X had been placing ads from numerous high-profile advertisers, including the NCTA, Gilead, Adobe, and others, on a verified pro-fascist account.
NCTA spokesperson Brian Dietz said in a statement to CNN that the association is concerned about its paid content appearing alongside “highly disturbing content.” He also said the NCTA had signed up for brand-safety features offered by X that purport to restrict ads to the “home feed of target audiences” and away from offensive keywords. “Brand safety will remain an utmost priority for NCTA, which means suspending advertising on Twitter/X for the foreseeable future and heavily limiting NCTA’s organic presence on the platform,” Dietz said.
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Gilead said the biopharmaceutical company will suspend advertising on X as it awaits an investigation into the incident.
All of this is bad news for X chief executive Linda Yaccarino, whom Musk hired seemingly to salvage the platform’s relationship with corporate advertisers. During a CNBC interview last week, Yaccarino insisted that her company remained committed to brand safety. “Your ads will only air next to content that is appropriate for you,” she assured advertisers, noting that a number of partners, including Coca-Cola and State Farm, had returned to X after leaving in the wake of Musk’s takeover. (Last month, Musk said X was still losing cash—even after several rounds of layoffs and belt-tightening measures—due to a 50% drop in the advertising revenue that accounts for the vast majority of company revenue.)
Yaccarino also explained how the site handles content that could prove harmful to brands. “If you’re going to post something that is lawful, but it’s awful, you get labeled, you get de-amplified, which means it cannot be shared,” she said. However, the application of those rules appears inconsistent: Per MediaMatters, New American Union, the fascist, pro-Hitler account in question, purchased a verification badge in April, has attracted thousands of followers, and had a steady stream of ads appear on its page. (X suspended the account following the publication of the Media Matters report.)
As of Thursday, Yaccarino has not commented on the loss of Gilead and NCTA’s spending. But in a Wednesday post, the executive emphasized a new layer of insurance for spooked brands. “Sensitivity Settings is live globally in the X Ads Manager—making it even simpler for all advertisers to find the right balance between reach and suitability,” she wrote. The ongoing question for X: Will advertisers trust them?
