Advertising and brand safety were a problem for Twitter before it was bought by “free speech absolutist” Elon Musk. Since the Pedo Guy purchased the social media network and eliminated anything that looked like the company was even trying to manage the overwhelming variety of hate speech located on the site, advertisers have disappeared. We know this because Musk never stops blaming others, like the ADL, for his loss of advertisers. The ADL has pointed out how much more anti-semitic Musk’s social network has become.
It isn’t just anti-semitism and isn’t getting any better or safer for advertisers. The pitiful list of brands that Musk and the CEO he hired to fix his advertising problems just screwed over is also sad, as they are probably among the better ones giving the platform another shot. Ad sales CEO Yaccarino took the opportunity and offered them prime placement on VDARE, a white power Twitter account.
CNN:
Over the last 24 hours, a Reliable Sources review found advertisements for a cohort of major companies and organizations have appeared directly on the verified profile account of VDARE, an openly racist, white supremacist outlet that publishes some of the most vile content on the internet.
Those companies and organizations include Amazon, Samsung, the Denver Broncos, Cox Communications, STARZ, The Wall Street Journal, The Michael J. Fox Foundation, the University of Missouri, New York Waterway, Axios, Puck, Ad Age, Morning Brew, and the Asian Development Bank.
The fact that X permits a publication like VDARE to operate a verified account on the platform — giving it access to monetization and boosting its visibility to users — is in itself seriously concerning (Facebook and YouTube, for instance, have banned the outlet from their platforms). But that it apparently also believes it is appropriate to monetize the outlet’s vicious hate speech says volumes not only about the company’s ethics, but its supposed commitment to brand safety.
That list of advertisers is probably screaming at Yaccarino, and it’s a sad list of brands.
