Proactive Investors - International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM) has suspended all advertising on Elon Musk's X, formerly known as Twitter, as its advertisements were displayed alongside content promoting Adolf Hitler and Nazi ideologies.
The decision was prompted by findings from watchdog Media Matters, which uncovered that corporate ads, including those from IBM , Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Oracle (NYSE:ORCL), and Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA)'s Xfinity appeared next to antisemitic content.
“IBM has zero tolerance for hate speech and discrimination and we have immediately suspended all advertising on X while we investigate this entirely unacceptable situation,” IBM said in a statement on Thursday evening.
Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA) said it was looking into the matter. Apple, Oracle and Xfinity had not responded at publication.
X responded by stating that its system does not intentionally align brands with such content and assured that the implicated posts would no longer generate revenue.
"X's point of view has always been very clear that discrimination by everyone should STOP across the board - I think that's something we can and should all agree on," X chief executive Linda Yaccarino said.
"X has also been extremely clear about our efforts to combat antisemitism and discrimination," she added. "There's no place for it anywhere in the world - it's ugly and wrong."
An unnamed X executive explained to media that ads on X "follow the people" and so "the Media Matter's researcher has its own user handle and they are then actively looking for this content — that's how user targeting works".
Musk tweeted that "Media Matters is an evil organization" and agreed with lots of posts from supportive accounts that he and the platform were not antisemitic and that the mainstream media "blatantly lies".
The move from IBM came against a background of broader concerns about reduced content moderation and increasing hate speech on X since Musk's takeover.
Advertisers have significantly withdrawn from or reduced spending on X, leading to a 55% decline in monthly US ad revenue, according to research firm Guideline, in the year since Musk's takeover in October 2022.