X races to limit damage after Elon Musk endorses anti-Semitic messages
Less than 24 hours after Elon Musk endorsed an anti-Semitic post on company continued. Thursday to limit the consequences.
X employees said Thursday they had received calls from advertisers questioning why Mr. Musk made comments seen as anti-Semitic and why their ads appeared next to white nationalist and Nazi content, according to internal messages viewed by The New York Times . IBM cut about $1 million in advertising spending it spent on the platform in the last three months of the year, the reports said.
Ms. Yaccarino said in a letter to employees Thursday morning that “X is a platform for everyone” and added that “discrimination by everyone must STOP across the board.” She said the company had been clear about its work to combat anti-Semitism and discrimination, and this was later shared a similar message on X.
In a statement, IBM said it has “zero tolerance for hate speech and discrimination and we have immediately suspended all advertising on X while we investigate this completely unacceptable situation.”
X did not respond to a request for comment. The Financial Times previously reported on IBM’s pause in advertising on X.
Mr Musk, who bought Twitter last year and renamed it X, has faced increasing criticism that he has tolerated and even encouraged anti-Semitic abuse on his social media platform. He has attacked George Soros, the financier who is often the target of anti-Semitic abuse, and has threatened to sue the Anti-Defamation League, a rights group that has highlighted the rise of anti-Semitism on X.
On Wednesday, Musk went a step further when he agreed to a post from an The Jewish people “have now come to the disturbing realization that the hordes of minorities who support the flooding of their land do not particularly like them,” the report added.
“You said the actual truth,” Mr Musk said replied to the post.
Jewish groups have compared the statement Musk endorsed to the “Great Replacement Theory,” the far-right idea that minorities are replacing the white European population.
“It is the deadliest anti-Semitic conspiracy theory in modern American history,” the American Jewish Committee, a US-based Israeli advocacy group, said. wrote at X on Thursday. “Strengthening on @X is incredibly dangerous.”
Social media platforms in general have faced increasing criticism since violence erupted between Israel and Gaza last month. According to the Anti-Defamation League and researchers, anti-Semitic and Islamophobic hate speech has increased on the sites and is especially prominent on X. On Wednesday night, more than a dozen Jewish creators and celebrities also confronted TikTok executives in a private meeting, urging them urged to do more to tackle the rise in anti-Semitism and harassment on the video service.
In September, Mr. Musk met with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, at a Tesla factory in the San Francisco Bay Area after facing accusations of anti-Semitism.
“It’s not easy to be vilified – I know you’ve never seen that, right?” Mr. Netanyahu asked Mr. Musk at one point.
“Me, maligned?” Mr. Musk said, laughing. “Never.”
At X, Ms. Yaccarino has previously intervened in situations involving anti-Semitic content on the platform. This month, a sales associate flagged apparently anti-Semitic posts that the site had not removed, leading Ms. Yaccarino to ask for the posts to be reviewed, two people with knowledge of the situation said. The employee who flagged the posts no longer works at the company, the people said. The information previously reported Ms. Yaccarino’s actions in those posts.
On Thursday morning, sales associates at X asked about Mr. Musk’s messages and what they could pass on to their customers, according to messages seen by The Times. They also quoted an article from Media Matters for America, a left-wing advocacy group, which showed that ads from major brands on X appeared alongside posts promoting white nationalist and Nazi perspectives.
“Many major advertisers are mentioned in this article,” one employee wrote.
Another employee wrote that she was concerned because she worked with Apple, a major advertiser mentioned in the Media Matters piece, and asked whether Mr. Musk’s posts had been “manipulated.” An employee responded that the company’s trust and safety team, which has faced layoffs and layoffs, is “actively looking into this.”
Mike Isaac And Kate Conger reporting contributed.