IBM won’t advertise on X due to insufficient fight against Nazism

IBM has suspended advertising on X (formerly Twitter) due to the fact that the service, in its opinion, is not doing enough to combat Nazi, anti-Semitic and other similar posts, and advertising from large corporations may end up in users’ feeds next to such posts. About this IBM reported American media yesterday, November 16.

“IBM has zero tolerance for hate speech and discrimination, so we have immediately stopped advertising on X until we investigate this completely unacceptable situation,” the company said.

IBM’s announcement comes after the nonprofit Media Matters for America published its own investigation into the situation in X. It states that the service does not block posts that, for example, speak positively about Adolf Hitler, and his quotes are framed as inspiring statements.

The social network also publishes positive memes about National Socialism, denies the Holocaust, etc. Media Matters for America also noticed that in X, next to such posts there may be advertisements for large corporations, including IBM, Apple, Oracle. The Anti-Defamation League of America has also recently criticized X and its owner Elon Musk for not doing enough to combat anti-Semitism.

X CEO Linda Yaccarino wrote that the service has been clear about its commitment to combating anti-Semitism and discrimination. However, many brands still became reduce spending on advertising on Twitter almost immediately after Mr. Musk bought it in October last year. As before reported Reuters, X’s advertising revenue fell 55% in October compared to the same month in 2022.

Yana Rozhdestvenskaya