In the past few days, X has once again faced backlash from advertisers as owner Elon Musk was found agreeing to posts propagating far-right content like ‘white pride’ and ‘anti-semitism’. A Media Matters report revealed that IBM, Apple, Comcast, NBCUniversal and multiple other companies had their ads posted besides posts by users that have pro-Nazi and pro-Hitler content. Advertisers like Apple, Disney, and IBM have since stopped their ad spends on the platform.
According to reports, Elon Musk is suing Media Matters for posts that he says are 'manufactured' to drive advertisers from the platform and 'destroy' X Corp.
X CEO Linda Yaccarino has sent out a memo, first published by The Hollywood Reporter, to its employees in response stating that the report on the platform being anti-semitic is ‘misleading’ and a 'deceptive attack' to 'undermine their work'. She claimed that advertisers had 'temporarily paused investments'.
Yaccarino was brought in to remedy X's relationship with advertisers who were bringing in high revenues. The platform has even lifted its ban on political ads in a bid to make up for its revenue. As pressure mounts for the company to distance itself from supporting antisemitism, Forbes reported that advertisers are urging Yaccarino to resign as well.
Yaccarino justified that X focuses on free speech saying that no other platform is 'working as hard to protect free speech like X'. She further mentioned, "What we’re doing matters, which means it naturally invites criticism from those who do not share our beliefs."
The platform has previously struggled with retaining advertising support as reports of hate speech proliferated following Musk's purchase and this seems to have aggravated it.
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