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IBM said Thursday it will stop advertising on .
“IBM has a zero tolerance for hate speech and 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 by left-leaning nonprofit Media Matters for America, released Thursday, identified IBM as one of several blue-chip companies whose ads appeared next to tweets that included support for National Socialism, Nazism, Memes depicting a spiritual awakening and including Adolf. Hitler’s quotes presented in inspirational style.
The move by IBM is the latest blow to X Chief Executive Linda Yaccarino’s effort to lure back advertisers who have fled since Musk bought the site a little more than a year ago. While Musk has been successful in his effort to loosen the site’s restrictions on speech, reducing the staff that used to moderate offensive content, its business has suffered from a financial outlook that insiders called dire. Is.
The move by IBM comes a day after Musk tweeted his agreement with an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory on the site, drawing fresh criticism from some civil rights leaders.
Musk was responding to an The user said he has no sympathy for Jews who face hateful comments like “Hitler was right”.
Musk replied, “You told the real truth,” which helped amplify the user’s tweet to his huge online following. In a later tweet, Musk criticized the Anti-Defamation League, a nonprofit that combats anti-Semitism and extremism, saying it focuses on anti-Semitism rather than “the minority groups that are their primary.” For hatred “unjustly attacks the majority of people in the West”. Threat.”
ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt hit back at Musk in a tweet on Thursday, saying, “At a time when anti-Semitism is exploding in America and rising around the world, to validate and promote anti-Semitic principles Using someone’s influence is undeniably dangerous.” ADL is one of a coalition of 60 advocacy groups that has called on major advertisers to boycott the platform unless Musk agrees to invest in enforcing the platform’s outdated content moderation rules.
Musk and Ax did not respond to requests for comment Thursday. Without directly referring to Musk’s tweet, Yaccarino published a tweet The demonstration held on Thursday was aimed at damage control. “X’s position has always been clear that discrimination by everyone must stop,” he wrote.
Angelo Carusone, president of Media Matters, said of IBM’s decision to pull its ads, “Better late than never.” He added, “They have been a significant buyer. They’re one of the big spenders who not only never took out their ads, but never even suggested they were concerned about Musk’s policies.
Carusone said his organization’s research shows that X may not be delivering on its promise to let advertisers control the content they advertise for. “Extremism, anti-Semitism, white supremacy – it has reached such a level that you cannot separate yourself from it.”
Civil rights groups and other advocates have objected to sweeping changes implemented by Musk, including the company’s decision to eliminate its longstanding system of verifying high-profile figures in favor of a subscription service. Musk has also reinstated once-booted account users, rolled back the company’s rules against Covid-19 misinformation and disbanded the teams that worked to free the platform from toxic content. Was in charge of keeping.
At stake are both X’s advertising business, which Yaccarino is struggling to revive, and Musk’s increasingly influential role on the global stage. 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 spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on whether Musk’s tweet led to the cancellation.
Meanwhile, the rise of hate speech and extremist content on X has put mainstream news outlets and civil rights groups in a difficult position. Many of those groups still see the platform as an important platform for sharing news and commenting, even as they evaluate or criticize Musk’s efforts to turn X into a free speech haven. Are.
While Elon Musk’s “misguided decisions” have made “the platform more toxic and frankly a cesspool,” it is still more popular than its rivals, said Free Press senior counsel Nora Benavidez, whose group filed the lawsuit. Helped organize an advertisers’ boycott against X.
“However I think it will take time to see a complete exodus from Twitter and we need creators and others to embrace those alternative platforms.”
, which has been the subject of sharp criticism of 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 continues to have a presence on X’s business has been harmed – ADL denies this claim. Spokesman Jake Hyman said Thursday that the organization plans to continue advertising on the site.
“The ADL needs our message about where anti-Semites and extremists are and who may be affected by them,” Hyman said. “Twitter/X remains a major social media platform with huge general audiences, the majority of whom do not want to be exposed to hateful content, including those who want to help protect themselves and others from that content. “Are looking for ways to.”
Thursday evening, a group of 164 Jewish leaders reiterated their call for big advertisers including 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. Did.
“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 leaders are still willing to do business with them.”
Source: www.washingtonpost.com
