Hateful Comments on Musk’s “Campaign on the X Site” After the Decay of Anti-Defamation

Advertisers are leaving the site after a new report found that pro-Nazi content was being shown next to company ads and Musk had supported a baseless antiemetic conspiracy theory.

X said that the research strategy used by Media Matters to discover the advertisements that ran along antisemitic content was not representative of how regular people use its platform. The organization followed accounts that posted the content, then refreshed the X timeline until ads appeared, X said in a blog post. The nine posts highlighted by Media Matters were only found to violate the moderation rules.

Not long before, Musk posted: “You have said the actual truth” in response to a post that claimed Jewish people hold “dialectical hatred” of white people.

The outcry over hate speech on X comes amid a financially challenging time for the platform, which generates nearly all of its revenue from advertising. The Anti-Defamation League is one of the groups that Musk blames for the drop in U.S. advertising revenue.

For months, Musk has attempted to find other ways to make money on the social media platform, including charging for “verified” blue checks in a subscription service, but none of his efforts have have gained momentum, just as the company’s advertising base appears more rickety than ever.

X CEO Linda Yaccarino said that the company was going to expand its brand safety tools in order to give marketers more control over what type of content they saw in their ads.

Musk tapped Yaccarino, the former head of advertising at NBCUniversial, in large part to help bring back major advertisers to the platform since Musk acquired it last year and unleashed drastic changes. Musk’s shakeups have resulted in loosened rules around what is allowed to be posted and leading to a surge of conspiracy theories.

Comments on “It Goes Beyond Money” by Musk, Greenblatt, and Benarroch: Anti-Defamation Leaders Tell Us What Happened at the Pittsburgh Synagogue

Jonathan Greenblatt, the Anti-Defamation league’s CEO wrote on the platform that it’s dangerous to use a person’s influence to spread antisemitic theories when it’s exploding in America.

Warner Bros. and Sony are among other brands that stopped their advertising on X on Friday.

Carusone adds that Apple typically signals a certain level of brand safety to other, smaller advertisers. The company has strict policies around content on its own platforms and in the App Store. If Apple paused, or plans to pause, its advertisements on X, it could scare other advertisers away from the platform, according to Carusone. “It goes way beyond money.”

Mr. Musk replied, “You’ve said the actual truth.” The Jewish groups said that Mr. Musk boosted a theory that Jews organize nonwhite immigrants to replace the white race. Robert Bowers embraced the concept when he murdered 11 people at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh.

According to Media Matters, X is threatening a meritless lawsuit in order to silence reporting that he even confirmed is accurate. Musk admitted that the ads were next to pro-Nazi content. This is like being mad at a mirror because you don’t like it. If he does sue us, we will win.”

In a statement, Joe Benarroch, the head of business operations at X said that their model avoids content for advertisers because of the fact that they served 50 impressions against the content in the article. He said that data won over allegations.