Saturday, September 16, 2023

Musk's "X" Places Ads With Anti-Semitic Content



 

Some big corporations will love hearing about this latest bit of news about Musk's ego toy (from a story originally by Media Matters):

"Big-name brands like Major League Baseball, Bayer, Tyson Foods and eBay have had their advertising placed next to Stew Peters' X account, which has more than 400,000 followers. Peters, who reportedly lives in Minnesota, has been associated with spreading far-right conspiracy theories, including false claims about COVID vaccines and racist, antisemitic and anti-LGBTQ  tropes on his podcast.

Despite CEO Linda Yaccarino's reassurances that X "opposes antisemitism in all its forms," many critics say the platform has consistently demonstrated a lack of action against antisemitic content, and that X owner Elon Musk has engaging with such content on multiple occasions.  [snip]

Several major brands have had their ads appear adjacent to accounts associated with white nationalist, neo-Nazi and even Holocaust-denial content, including the accounts of extremists recently restored to the platform under Musk, according to Media Matters. Some of the content being promoted includes long-discredited conspiracy theories linking Jewish people to the 9/11 attacks." (our emphasis)

Musk's response has been to threaten a lawsuit against the Anti-Defamation League for informing advertisers of this situation. 

As long as the transplanted South Afrikaner runs "X" / Twitter, he will ignore boundaries and, in the name of "free speech," push hateful and dangerous content from neo-Nazis, white supremacists and Russian trolls. Advertisers need to tell him that they will abandon his platform unless the situation changes, or they'll be tainted by its increasing toxicity.