The short message service Twitter generates a large part of its income from digital advertisements. But now big customers like Disney and Coca-Cola are up in arms. The reason: Advertisements of the brands appeared in the online network alongside child pornographic content.
The US short message service Twitter is getting into trouble with its major advertisers by randomly placing ads next to posts containing child pornography. Brands from Disney, Coca-Cola and Mazda to a US children's hospital were among about 30 advertisers whose ads appeared on Twitter account profile pages that contained links to child pornography content. That's according to a Reuters review of user accounts identified in a new investigation into online child sexual abuse by cybersecurity group Ghost Data.
The brands Dyson, Mazda, Forbes and PBS Kids then suspended or removed their marketing campaigns, the companies told Reuters. Disney, Coca-Cola and NBCUniversal also condemned the ad placement associated with the inappropriate content. Disney said it is "doubling down on efforts to ensure the digital platforms we advertise on and the media buyers we use step up their efforts to ensure mistakes like this don't happen again." Coca-Cola said it would not allow the material to be associated with its brand and that any breach of these standards would be unacceptable and taken very seriously. According to NBCUniversal, Twitter asked for the ads to be removed.
Ghost Data identified more than 500 accounts in September that openly shared or solicited child sexual abuse material over a 20-day period. According to the organization, Twitter failed to remove more than 70 percent of these profiles during the study period. After Reuters shared information from a sample of 20 accounts with Twitter last Thursday, the company removed around 300 more accounts from the platform, and more than 100 others remained on the site the following day, according to Ghost Data.
Reuters shared the full list of more than 500 affected accounts on Monday. Twitter has reviewed these and suspended them permanently for violating its rules, the company said. The short message service then informed advertisers in an e-mail that it had "discovered that ads were running within profiles that had to do with the public sale or the solicitation of child sexual abuse".
Transparency reports on the company's website show that Twitter suspended more than a million accounts for child sexual exploitation last year. The short message service did not respond to a request for further comment.
Advertiser response poses a risk to Twitter's business, which derives more than 90 percent of its revenue from selling digital ad placements. At the same time, the company is facing a court case against Tesla boss Elon Musk, who wants to exit the $44 billion deal to buy the social media company.
