Major corporations are running ads next to Twitter’s anti-LGBTQ+ & neo-Nazi content

When transphobic billionaire Elon Musk took over Twitter and restored the accounts of white supremacists and neo-Nazis, big-name corporate advertisers fled the site.

Some of those advertisers are reportedly returning now that Musk has been replaced as CEO by former advertising executive Linda Yaccarino. However, those advertisers may be dismayed to know that their ads are appearing next to neo-Nazi and anti-LGBTQ+ content.

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Transgender anti-extremist activist Alejandra Caraballo recently noted that ads from Disney, Microsoft, Adobe, Harper Collins, the National Basketball Association (NBA), Freddie Mac, and other companies have appeared on Twitter next to video clips of Europa: The Last Battle. The ads appeared when Caraballo searched Twitter for the phrase “Europa last battle.”

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Europa: The Last Battle is a 2017 12-hour neo-Nazi film that says Jews caused both World Wars to create the nation of Israel. The film also claims that Nazi leader Adolph Hitler killed millions of Jews, queers, and others to save Germany from the Jews’ worldwide plot.

The very existence of the film’s clips on Twitter violates the social media platform’s policies against “media depicting hateful imagery.”

The following day, Caraballo found that ads no longer appeared under Twitter searches for “Europa last battle.” However, they did appear under searches for “last battle Europa.”

“[The Twitter team] appear[s] to have restricted that specific search, and not anything else — so they haven’t moderated the actual content,” Caraballo told Insider. “This is still a neo-Nazi film that’s deeply antisemitic that is still on this site, right, racking up 1000s of views. It’s deeply distressing, and they don’t seem to be taking any of this seriously.”

She also noted that searches for the anti-LGBTQ+ verb “groom” brought up “very horrible anti-LGBTQ content alongside ads.” Big-name corporations may not realize that their ads are appearing next to this content since “groom” and “last battle Europa” are precise cultural references that corporate brand safety experts may not know about, she added.

LGBTQ Nation contacted Disney, Microsoft, Adobe, Harper Collins, and the NBA for comment.

Here's @Microsoft, @Adobe, @Disney, @HarperCollins just to name a few. pic.twitter.com/bvZbf4N9VR

— Alejandra Caraballo 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️🇵🇷 (@Esqueer_) June 16, 2023

After Musk took over Twitter, the site quietly revoked a policy that protected transgender people from deliberate misgendering and deadnaming. There has since been a dramatic rise in anti-LGBTQ+ hate speech on the platform, and it has made millions of dollars from hateful tweets.

Last week, the LGBTQ+ media watchdog group GLAAD called Twitter “the most dangerous platform for LGBTQ people,” noting that Musk removed many content moderators who used to enforce the site’s policies against hate speech and harassment.

“Twitter is largely a cesspool now. You can’t post without getting attacked. There’s no room for conversation. It is just about hand-to-hand combat,” GLAAD CEO and President Sarah Kate Ellis said. “There isn’t a week that goes by that we don’t have a doxxing situation for somebody in our community that we have to come in and help them stop it and stop the hate, stop the vitriol, and stop the attacks.”

A recent study from the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) found that Twitter ignores 99% of hate speech posted by Twitter Blue subscribers.

The CCDH’s study found that “Twitter failed to act on tweets containing racist, homophobic, neo-Nazi, antisemitic or conspiracy content posted in the last month” even though these tweets “clearly violate the platform’s policies against hateful conduct.”