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IBM said Thursday it was stopping advertising
“IBM does not tolerate hate speech or discrimination and we have immediately suspended all advertising on X while we investigate this completely unacceptable situation,” the company said in a statement.
The report released Thursday by the left-leaning nonprofit Media Matters for America identified IBM as one of several blue-chip companies whose ads appeared alongside tweets that included endorsements of Nazism, memes portraying Nazism as a spiritual awakening and Adolf Hitler quotes presented in an inspirational style.
IBM’s withdrawal is the latest blow to X CEO Linda Yaccarino’s efforts to lure back advertisers who have left the site since Musk bought it just over a year ago. While Musk was successful in his attempt to loosen the site’s restrictions on speech and cut the staff that previously moderated objectionable content, its business suffered and its financial outlook was seen as bleak by insiders.
IBM’s move came a day after Musk tweeted on the site that he agreed with an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory, sparking renewed criticism from some civil rights activists.
Musk was responding to an The user said he had no sympathy for Jews who were confronted with hateful comments such as “Hitler was right.”
Musk responded, “You were telling the actual truth,” helping to popularize the user’s tweet to his large online fan base. In a subsequent tweet, Musk continued to criticize the Anti-Defamation League, a nonprofit organization that combats anti-Semitism and extremism, saying it was “unjustly attacking the majority of the West” for their anti-Jewish hatred and not “the minority groups that support them.” be in the foreground”. Danger.”
ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt responded to Musk in a tweet on Thursday, saying: “At a time when anti-Semitism is exploding in America and rising around the world, using your influence to promote anti-Semitic theories is undeniably dangerous “ADL is part of a coalition of 60 advocacy groups that have called on major advertisers to boycott the platform until Musk agrees to invest in enforcing the platform’s old content moderation rules.
Musk and X did not respond to requests for comment on Thursday. Without directly mentioning Musk’s tweet, Yaccarino posted a tweet Thursday appeared with the aim of containing the damage. “X’s position has always been very clear that discrimination should stop across the board by everyone,” she wrote.
Angelo Carusone, president of Media Matters, said of IBM’s decision to pull its ads: “Better late than never.” He added: “They were a significant buyer. They are the kind of people who spend a lot of money and not only never ran their ads, but never even hinted that they were concerned about Musk’s policies.
Carusone said his organization’s research shows that X is failing to deliver on its own promises to let advertisers control the content they promote on the side. “The extremism, the anti-Semitism, the white supremacy – it has tipped so far that you can’t protect yourself from it.”
Civil rights groups and other advocates have spoken out against a variety of changes Musk has made, including the company’s decision to scrap its old system for vetting high-profile figures in favor of a subscription service. Musk has also reinstated account users once launched, rolled back the company’s rules against Covid-19 misinformation and gutted teams responsible for keeping the platform free of toxic content.
At stake are both the advertising business of Musk was scheduled to speak at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco this week, but his appearance was canceled on Thursday. An APEC spokesman did not respond to a request for comment on whether Musk’s tweets led to the cancellation.
Meanwhile, increasing hate speech and extremist content on X has put mainstream news outlets and civil rights groups in a difficult position. Many of these groups still view the platform as an important forum for sharing and commenting on news, even as they judge or criticize Musk’s attempts to turn X into a haven for free speech.
Although Elon Musk’s “misguided decisions” have made “the platform more toxic and, frankly, a cesspool,” it is still more popular than its competitors, said Free Press senior counsel Nora Benavidez, whose group helped organize the ad boycott against X has.
“However, I think it will take some time for a complete move away from Twitter and we need YouTubers and others to use these alternative platforms.”
The New York Times, which has been heavily criticized by Musk, still plans to host him at its annual Dealbook conference later this month. The Times did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.
The ADL also remains on The organization plans to continue advertising on the site, spokesman Jake Hyman said Thursday.
“ADL needs our message to be where the anti-Semites and extremists are and those who might be influenced by them,” Hyman said. “Twitter /
On Thursday evening, a group of 164 Jewish leaders reiterated their call for major advertisers like Disney, Apple and Amazon to stop “funding X through their ad spending” and called on Apple and Google to remove it from their app stores.
“None of this is surprising: Musk has been spreading anti-Semitism for years,” the religious leaders wrote. “What’s surprising is how many tech companies and executives are still willing to do business with him.”