Multiple companies have suspended their ad campaigns with the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, as of Friday over fears that their ads would be displayed next to far-right messages.
Apple, Comcast, IBM, Warner Brothers, Paramount Global, Disney, and Lionsgate have all halted their advertisements on the site.
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The pauses come after a report from the nonprofit group Media Matters alleged that advertisements from Apple, IBM, Amazon, and Oracle were among those that appeared next to Nazi content on the platform.
“IBM has zero tolerance for hate speech and discrimination and we have immediately suspended all advertising on X while we investigate this entirely unacceptable situation,” a spokesperson said in a statement obtained.
The move by Apple was reported by Axios, and Disney’s move was reported by the New York Times.
An X executive told Axios that the company has done a “sweep on the accounts that Media Matters found and they will [no] longer be monetizable.” Specific posts that the report highlighted will also be labeled “Sensitive Media” going forward.
“The X system is not intentionally placing a brand actively next to this type of content, nor is a brand actively trying to support this type of content with an ad placement,” the executive said in a statement.
Advertisers have been hesitant to do business with X since owner Elon Musk purchased the company last year and said he would be looser on free speech restrictions. Companies, including General Motors and Volkswagen, have recoiled from the platform at various points over the past year as X has been criticized for seeing an increase in hate speech, misinformation, and foreign propaganda.
In April, Musk said almost all the advertisers that left the platform had returned but later said ad revenue was down 50%.
The brands distancing themselves from the platform also come after Musk endorsed an antisemitic conspiracy theory earlier this week, which was criticized by the White House. Musk appeared to endorse the theory that Jewish people “push hatred” against white people.
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Musk has since clarified his comments, claiming he does not believe “all Jewish communities” hate white people but that the pro-Jewish Anti-Defamation League “unjustly attacks the majority of the West, despite the majority of the West supporting the Jewish people and Israel. This is because they cannot, by their own tenets, criticize the minority groups who are their primary threat.”
X CEO Linda Yaccarino attempted to assure employees in a memo on Thursday that “X is a platform for everyone” and that “discrimination by everyone should STOP across the board.”
