Companies are pulling their ad services from Twitter after tweets soliciting child pornography appeared alongside their marketing campaigns on the social media platform.
Research from cybersecurity group Ghost Data found that more than 30 advertisers, including Cole Haan, Ecolab, Mazda, Walt Disney Company, the Coca-Cola Company, and a children’s hospital, had promotions appearing on profile pages of Twitter accounts posting exploitative material, according to a Reuters review.
Tweets including words similar to “rape” and “teens” appeared next to the corporate advertisers’ promotional tweets.
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In one example, a promoted tweet for shoe and accessories brand Cole Haan appeared next to a tweet in which a user said they were ‘trading teen/child’ content, the Reuters review found https://t.co/Mde4DCX8bu pic.twitter.com/D0DDJqTnLh
— Reuters (@Reuters) September 28, 2022
“We’re horrified,” said David Maddocks, brand president of Cole Haan, whose promotional tweet appeared next to a tweet that proposed “trading teen/child” content. “Either Twitter is going to fix this, or we’ll fix it by any means we can, which includes not buying Twitter ads.”
Another example included a tweet from a user looking for “Yung girls ONLY, NO Boys” placed right above a promotional tweet from Scottish Rite Children’s Hospital.
“Twitter needs to fix this problem ASAP, and until they do, we are going to cease any further paid activity on Twitter,” a spokesperson for Forbes said.
Disney reportedly called the content “reprehensible.” A spokesperson noted Disney would be “doubling-down on our efforts to ensure that the digital platforms on which we advertise, and the media buyers we use, strengthen their efforts to prevent such errors from recurring.”
Twitter reportedly said the social media platform has “zero tolerance for child sexual exploitation.” Twitter spokeswoman Celeste Carswell noted the social media platform is devoting additional resources to the problem, including the hiring of new positions to write policy and execute strategies dedicated to child safety.
Over a 20-day period, Ghost Data said its research also found more than 500 accounts openly sharing or requesting child sexual abuse material. Of those accounts, Twitter reportedly failed to remove more than 70% during the study’s period.
Upon reviewing the research, Carswell said that on Tuesday, Twitter permanently suspended the accounts.
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Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who is caught up in a court battle over his intent to terminate an agreement with Twitter that would allow him to purchase the social media platform for $44 billion, called the report “extremely concerning.”
