As Elon Musk Endorses Bigoted Nonsense, Advertisers Find Their Ads On Nazi Content
from the who-did-nazi-that-coming dept
At this point you need to assume that organizations still advertising on exTwitter know that they’re supporting a new fascist movement… and are okay with it. Yes, many advertisers on exTwitter have pulled the plug on advertising on the site. And even the ones that Linda Yaccarino has been able to coax back appear to be spending a fraction of what they spent before.
And, yes, since Yaccarino (who was brought in because of her supposedly good relationship with advertisers) keeps telling brands that they’re safe on the platform, and that even if bad shit is there their ads will be kept away from it.
But the problem is not the advertising tools. It’s the guy who owns the site. And Yaccarino should know this, because the way she ended up in this job was that she interviewed Musk on stage back in April in a pitch to advertisers, and it was revealed that in email discussions beforehand over what she should ask him about, advertisers made it abundantly clear to her that the problem was Elon Musk himself.
This week, he’s demonstrated that again by wholeheartedly embracing an antisemitic claim that Jews are somehow “anti-white” and are “pushing” a “hatred against whites” (a version of the nonsense “replacement theory” concept that is popular among white supremacists).
And now Media Matters has found that some of those “top advertisers” that Yaccarino promised wouldn’t have their ads show up next to neo-nazis… are… (you know where this is going…) having their ads show up next to neo-nazis.
But that certainly isn’t the case for at least five major brands: We recently found ads for Apple, Bravo, Oracle, Xfinity, andIBM next to posts that tout Hitler and his Nazi Party on X. Here they are:
And, yes, sometimes people claim that merely garden variety bigotry is “neo-nazi” content, but the tweets above are flat out neo-nazi, Hitler-praising content. There’s not even an attempt at subtle bigotry. Why bother, when Elon is willing to endorse the blatant stuff?
In response to this report, IBM (who was one of the largest remaining advertisers) has said it is immediately pulling its ads from the platform.
And, yes, it’s impossible to promise that no bad content will appear next to ads. That’s a promise no one can make (and Yaccarino never should have made). But when you have a company that has an owner/boss who not only actively invited back onto the platform multiple known neo-nazis, and repeatedly seems to endorse their messages (some coded, some not even remotely coded), is it any wonder that the site is flooded with neo-nazi content, making it that much more likely that your ads will show up next to such content?
As for how management has responded? Elon called Media Matters an “evil organization” for… pointing out literal factual information.
Yaccarino, as is her standard practice, put out a bland meaningless corporate-speak statement about how the company is combating antisemitism and believes there’s “no place for it.” Except, Linda, there is. And it comes from your boss. And everyone knows it. You saying otherwise doesn’t change that. Just about every reply to Yaccarino’s tweet, even from the blue checks, is some variation of “have you told Elon?”
Honestly, at this point, you have to think that companies still advertising on the platform are willing to say they, too, endorse such content.
Filed Under: ads, brand safety, elon musk, linda yaccarino, neonazis
Companies: apple, ibm, oracle, twitter, x, xfinity
Comments on “As Elon Musk Endorses Bigoted Nonsense, Advertisers Find Their Ads On Nazi Content”
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minority hordes
How come no one reporting on this article deigns to mention Musk endorsing “minority hordes” taking over countries? Why is this only about anti-semitism?
Really shows where most people’s focus is.
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What do you think replacement theory is?
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1 Jew is worth 75 minorities.
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Is that you, Mr. Shapiro?
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Yes.
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Re: Re: Mike Masnick Malding Again
it depends, they made comparisons to how many “9/11’s”, and there was a Palestinian who was lambasting Piers Morgan about the death toll, and how multitudes more Palestinians die than Israeli’s, but I recall the number being about 40 to 1.
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If you dialogue long enough with someone who believes this, you’ll eventually find out they blame the Jews.
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A new account with a single comment attempting to harness surface-level outrage to obscure the link between antisemitism and “replacement theory.”
I believe this is the sort of the kids were calling “sus” at one point.
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I’m just pointing out the clear whitewashing going on here.
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You’re just obscuring the link between antisemitism and “replacement theory.”
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“Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre
One of Bigot-Me-Elmo’s favourite tools is the “shoot the messenger” logical fallacy.
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Really puts teeth in the question, “how badly do you want that 7 digit salary?”
Still waiting for Tesla shareholders to weight in on this. Do they approve this type of hype-building for the next big product? (Not even going to mention if this product itself any good, that’s a separate can of worms)
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MIKE! YOU FORGOT TO SET THE SNARKY “FROM-THE-[INSERT THING HERE]-DEPT” SUBTTILE! MIKE THERE’S A NOTICEABLE GAP BETWEEN THE TITLE AND BODY! MIKE! MIIIKEEEE!
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Stop shouting!!!
But, yes, Mike, we’re really going into snark withdrawal here. You need to do something.
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With all this Elon nonsense, the snark had to run out and be refilled…
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“Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice:
That alone should encourage the crew.
Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice:
What I tell you three times is true.”
(The second verse of The Hunting of the Snark, an Agony in Eight Fits, by Lewis Carrol, 1876.)
How will the Musketeers justify this one, I wonder?
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Gaslighting, I assume.
He should had bought the “Truth Social” if he wanted so much bullsh… “truth” about the real world. But now Trump has a perfect podium for his next campaign (and I’m sure it will get some extra visibility from it). More than seven and three years ago, he now will be able to speak his free mind with the greatest free speech media on earth, with as much characters than his IQ.
I honestly don’t understand why it matters what an ad is next to. My problem as an advertiser would be that my ads are promoting a platform that promotes Nazi content, whether or not the ads happen to be on the same screen as the Nazi content.
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Several things.
For a lot of people X is not a Nazi bar since they don’t get out of their comfort zone to where the Nazis are partying. The advertisers were promised that they could only target those people and pretend the Nazis don’t exist.
Perception management. Believe it or not most people do not see X as a Nazi bar. And to a lot of people X is not yet one, Musk has just started inviting the Nazis to stay after all.
More perception management. Advertisers don’t give a damn about a place being a Nazi bar, what they look at is RoI. RoI does include the cost of negative public reactions. And that is what gets them to leave, not the fact that they are advertising in a Nazi bar.
Tide and Bleach
The best white wash.
afaik government contracts will usually have provisions about what happens to same if your company becomes involved in discriminatory behaviors.
i would guess that at least some companies are perfectly ok with it. Whether they want to be seen as being ok with it is another matter entirely, if they are at all aware that these jackasses are loud but hardly a majority.
John Scalzi’s just announced that he’s done with exTwitter.
And so am I. I’m over here now, among other places.
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I’ve been debating whether or not to go onto Mastodon for a while. I’ve done what Scalzi’s done – kept my handle so no one else can run off with it – not that many people would: I’m hardly a big name anywhere in the world. 🙂
'Okay no OFFICIAL place for it... yet...'
Yaccarino, as is her standard practice, put out a bland meaningless corporate-speak statement about how the company is combating antisemitism and believes there’s “no place for it.” Except, Linda, there is. And it comes from your boss.
She really is the modern day Baghdad Bob…
‘Twitter is doing great and there is absolutely no place for antisemitism on the site! Except for there. Oh and there. There too. And the person at the very top, can’t forget that one no matter how much I wish everyone would…’
Re: Pain sponge
Fans of “Succession” call a person in Yaccarino’s capacity a pain sponge.
Yaccarino
When will she buy a vowel?
She must be desperate to stay even with Apple bailing.
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After lying to a bunch of advertisers and torpedoing her reputation as a result she might be sticking around because she believes she’s out of other options, having burned all her bridges in service to her current boss.
That or she’s waiting for a job offer from some Very Fine People who don’t consider baldfaced lying a problem before bailing.
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Legitimately surprised she hasn’t gotten an offer with Koch Industries, News Corp, Hobby Lobby or any of those Very Fine Multinationals already.
All that lying in service to the world’s richest white supremacist should look good on her fucking resume. As is “destroying the site formerly known as Twitter”.
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My guess is she negotiated a hefty golden parachute and is going to stay around until Twitter’s burnt to the ground to get it.
Jokes on her, though. By that point Twitter won’t have any money to pay it out.
Re: Re: Re: '... no, I'm sure the leopard is on my side.'
Not to mention even if there is enough money to cover any such contract has she met her boss and seen how he treats contracts he doesn’t want to honor?
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In addition to Apple, you can likely also now include Disney, Paramount, and Lionsgate.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/17/technology/elon-musk-twitter-x-advertisers.html
Musk just likes to speedrun Godwins Law.
Did Linda meet Elon?
I know there was the interview earlier this year. But, did she talk to him, get to know the man?
Because anyone that has met the man knows he’s a narcissistic jerk, micro manager, and misunderstands significant issues in society because he doesn’t understand “humans” of which he has stated he is not one.
This is not a surprise. Elon cannot keep from shooting himself in the foot. At least he puts one foot over the other so he saves a round or two.
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She worked for Trump; none of this is going to be new to her.
I vaguely remember reading that IBM had a history of working with the Nazis in WW2. With that in mind, their ads appearing next to Nazi content is pretty on-brand.
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Mike Masnick Malding Again
I was raised Jewish, and i don’t know why this is anti-semetic, white people genocided jews so there is going to be a blood feud, just like BLM is about hatred for slavery, and the chinese hate the japanese for WWII, and the Palestinians hate the jews.
I think that you people who live in a hugbox are completely ignorant that human nature has been a series of blood feuds between different tribes, villages, nations, which has gone on since the beginning of history, because in/out group preferences are built into our genetic code going back millions of years.
Re: BJ Barber Bullshit
Again I see this “Mike Masnick Malding Again”
What is this about?
Seems someone has an axe to grind, a bridge to troll and really bad eggs.
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I’m not even surprised that you lack even the tiniest amount of reason, which you implicitly blame on instincts dictated by genetics which the rest of us have no problems controlling. It’s the ultimate excuse assholes use when they have nothing else to defend themselves with. “Oh, it’s just human nature”, abrogating any kind of personal responsibility what so ever for your actions and behavior.
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It’s even less surprising that this odious example of humanity was convicted of, you know, revenge pornography, something I think we all agree is just as barbaric as the same shit he decries.
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First, many Jews do not share this blood-feud idea you speak of, and most just want to be left alone. You do not speak for all Jews, so don’t pretend you do.
Second, BLM is not about hatred for slavery; this is about stuff that has yet to stop happening in the US. Slavery was simply (at least arguably) the worst it got.
Third, the Chinese and Japanese have hated each other long before WWII, and neither have treated each other all that well. Yes, Japan mistreated Chinese people during WWII, but you’re vastly oversimplifying their relations by saying that’s the primary or only reason for it.
Fourth, Hamas hates Jews. Palestinians aren’t all Jew-haters. Seriously, do you have no concept of nuance?
Finally, yes, human history is full of blood feuds, and a good part of why that is is the evolutionary in/out-group preference, but you greatly oversimplify it. More importantly, the bigotry is about applying that to every individual in the group. Just because there are an alarming number of whites who are white supremacists doesn’t mean that all whites are racist, so that there may be a number of Jews who are anti-white doesn’t make it any less bigoted to say that all Jews are anti-white.
Oracle being shown doesn’t make sense because it assumes that they would have an issue with advertising on X
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It's the ADL
Jonathan Greenblatt and the ADL had been in full woke ideologue mode before October 7, ignoring left-wing antisemitism and complaining only about “white supremacy”, and sideswiping X and Musk while doing so. Musk has been rightly angry about this for some time, and did his usual impolitic off-the-cuff commentary leading to this latest tempest.
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…the linked article is behind a paywall and does not support that claim
…but you’re going to whine about ads on Twitter anyway? –if you don’t like the platform, don’t use it!
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Why are the “spiritual awakenings” and “lend-lease” posts considered pro-Nazi? It looks to me that they are comparing modern-day social justice movements and calls for ceasefires against Palestinians to similar movements in the past that would have resulted in not fighting Nazis, and therefore finding these modern movements to be evil. Which is a very true sentiment.
Similarly, why is the post that says that the Nazis outlawed abortion and paid for motherhood considered pro-Nazi? It sounds like an indictment of today’s right-wing, who want to promote similar policies. Even the “Hitler truth” post reads as bitter irony, considering what he actually believed.
Also, a common meme is to show the Israeli flag with a swastika intertwining the Star of David. Were none of those near ads by prominent companies, or was Media Matters very selective in what they displayed? All those good little Nazis of the left who cheer atrocities as long as they result in piles of Jewish corpses can screech about X and convince themselves that it isn’t they who are the antisemitic scum.
Just block.the ads
As far as AdBlock direction goes there is some AdBlock detector that uses jQuery
Just tell your firewall to block and url with jQuery anywhere in the URL and that will shut down any ad blocking detector that uses jQuery
There is no law that makes evading AdBlock detection a criminal offense.
Just like the arms race as adblockers are improved as YouTube detects them. There is no law that makes circumventing detection a crime
Re: Interesting side to focus on there
Yes, it’s the ads next to the nazi content that’s the problem in this situation…
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And you’re missing the point.
Most advertisers claim to not want to be associated with Nazis. Despite their histories and the fact that they will associate with Nazis if it means better profits.
They’d like to maintain that fucking illusion for as long as possible. Not be called out by some Emerald Space Karen who is absolutely willing to platform white supremacists.
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I’m quite sure what companies did 80 years ago aren’t relevant to what they do today. The world isn’t a static place.
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“Just block.the ads”
Just block the ads cause no one else will be able to see them either, Brilliant!
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How does this fix… anything, really?
Blocking ads is a necesdary evil as a lot of ads have malware and you can be burned fit what you do not know is there.
That is why my phone radio station in Australia when it existed had a company policy of wiping station owned devices before travelling abroad
Wiping devices before travel did not break any laws do n any country
We especially did that before anyone travelled tomyhe usa to adlsset forfeiture states so if company owned electronics were seized, anything incriminating we did not know about could never be recovered
Also, from Australia, we could log on to Google, if anybody company owned Device was seized remotely wipe
Wiping the device from.a computer in Australia is not subject to prosecution in the United States as American law has no jurisdiction in Australia.
A computer in Australia is only subject to Australian laws
Never mind the bigotry, Musk’s policies are just making using the site from the outside looking in completely unusable. I can’t even look at linked tweets without it forcing a big fat login prompt which returns me to the main page if I decline. They’re actively making it harder to access the content I’m coming for.
Make the process annoying enough and no amount of goodwill is going to bring users back.
show your friends and you show who you are
“replacement theory” is a newspeak term used by people who insist they are antizionists but obviously are neofascists.