Internet
Placed next to Nazi posts: IBM stops advertising on X
The computer giant IBM will no longer advertise via X. Photo
© Mary Altaffer/AP/dpa
The Twitter successor X has the next hate speech problem. IBM stops a million-dollar advertising budget after the company’s advertising appeared next to images of Hitler. And that’s not all.
The computer company wanted to spend around a million dollars on X in the final quarter, as the New York Times reported, citing internal messages from the platform.
A few hours earlier, the organization Media Matters had shown how advertisements from IBM, Apple and the software company Oracle, among others, appeared on X alongside posts with positive statements about Adolf Hitler and the ideology of the National Socialists.
A step by the EU Commission
On Friday, the EU Commission also announced that it no longer wanted to place advertising on X for the time being. A corresponding recommendation was sent to the authority’s departments. The move is justified by an alarming increase in disinformation and hate speech. The authority did not initially disclose how much money the commission spends on advertising on X and other social networks.
Companies and organizations have little influence over exactly which posts their advertising is placed next to. The ads are shown more with reference to age target groups, specific areas or user interests. In order to avoid a negative environment for their brands, advertisers rely primarily on X to consistently keep hate speech off the platform. Other online services have also had similar problems with their advertising customers in the past, for example Google’s video platform YouTube. At that time, it tightened content supervision in order to win back advertising customers.
Many companies stay away from the platform
Since Musk bought Twitter a year ago, many companies have had concerns about exactly this and are staying away from the platform or limiting their spending. Musk has said several times that advertising revenue is only about half as high as it was during the Twitter era. At times he tried to incite his followers against renegade advertisers. When there were reports that Apple had cut spending on ads on the platform, Musk visited CEO Tim Cook at its headquarters in Cupertino. X boss Linda Yaccarino, appointed by Musk, promised advertisers a safe environment.
Musk represents political views of the American right and accused the former Twitter leadership of suppressing them. He promised more freedom of speech – all statements that did not violate the law would be allowed. At the same time, his dismissal actions greatly affected the Twitter teams that were supposed to ensure the deletion of hate speech.
The X owner himself caused a new controversy: he endorsed a post that spread an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory. It said, among other things, that “hatred against whites” was being spread by the Jews. Musk wrote under the post on Wednesday that it contained the “actual truth.” Musk later added that he was referring to “some groups” such as the Jewish organization Anti-Defamation League (ADL) that spread “effectively anti-white racism and anti-Asian racism.” In further statements, Musk reiterated that, in his view, there is a problem with racism against white people.
160 million followers follow Elon Musk
ADL boss Jonathan Greenblatt wrote on The American Jewish Committee organization also pointed out that the post supported by Musk contained elements of the conspiracy theory that played a role in the attack on a synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018. The attacker killed eleven people at the time.
Musk has more than 160 million followers on X. After earlier criticism, he emphasized that he had no anti-Semitic views. Yaccarino wrote on X on Thursday that discrimination from all sides must stop.
White House reprimands Musk for his encouragement
The US investor Ross Gerber raised the question of what consequences Musk’s actions would have for the electric car manufacturer Tesla, which he leads. Musk is not acting in the interests of Tesla, criticized Gerber on the TV channel CNBC. “He destroys everything he has built” and damages the reputation of the car manufacturer. He himself will be replacing his Tesla Model Y with a vehicle from competitor Rivian next year – “and I’m sure the rest of Los Angeles will do the same.”
Tech billionaire Elon Musk has now received a reprimand from the White House for being popular for an anti-Semitic post on his online platform X (formerly Twitter). “We condemn this abhorrent support of anti-Semitic and racist hatred in the strongest possible terms,” criticized a spokesman for the US Presidential Office on Friday.