Amid an X advertiser exodus prompted by Elon Musk’s promotion of an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory, Australian government departments continue to pay to advertise on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
Major global advertisers have pulled their advertising spend from X since the world’s richest man and owner of X endorsed a tweet on his platform from a white nationalist account.
The user blamed Jewish people for “pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them”, with Musk replying “You have said the actual truth.”
At the same time, X has continued to platform extreme and hateful accounts that were banned from the service before Musk took over.
Australian neo-Nazis are thriving on the platform, with known extremists like Thomas Sewell reportedly having joined X.
Over the weekend Musk restored the X account of the far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. He had previously refused to do so, citing the fact that his own “firstborn child died in [his] arms” as the reason he’d never show mercy to anyone, such as Jones, who used the deaths of children for personal gain.
Just a year ago, Jones filed for bankruptcy after a court ordered him to pay more than A$2.2 billion in damages for his role in promoting the Sandy Hook conspiracy theory — a conspiracy that led to the parents of dead children being harassed for being “actors”. Jones’ first acts back on X included resharing posts from accused rapist and sex trafficker Andrew Tate (accusations Tate denies) and joining a live audio stream with Musk.
Despite the platform’s worsening brand safety, at least two accounts run by Australian government departments continue to pay Musk’s X to promote their posts.
Crikey has seen promoted posts from the Department of Education @AusGovEducation and the Department of Defence’s @ADFCareers accounts in the last week.
Both departments were contacted for comment. A Department of Education spokesperson confirmed that the department continues to advertise on the platform. They justified this as being guided by advice from Universal McCann, a marketing agency that is responsible for the whole federal government’s brand safety monitoring.
“Through whole of government arrangements, Universal McCann has an ongoing role in monitoring adherence to brand safety requirements across social media platforms,” the spokesperson told Crikey in an email.
The Department of Defence acknowledged that it had received the request for comment but did not respond.
Universal McCann did not respond to questions as to whether it had considered X’s brand suitability in the context of Musk’s most recent acts.
In the meantime, these government ads will run between those from other prestige advertisers such as a company selling a device to steal semen from a discarded condom, and posts from convicted extremists saying they love Hitler.
X’s press email account immediately responded to a Crikey media request with an automated statement: “Busy now, please check back later.”
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