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IBM pauses advertising on X after ads show up next to antisemitic content
- moneytide1 3y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law
- local_crmdgeon 3y ago[flagged]
- derwiki 3y agoSure it has! They ditched their Chronography division at some point.
- pierat 3y agoThis definitely shouldn't be flagged, as edgy as it is. IBM materially provided computers knowingly to the WWII Nazies of Germany, to identify, track, and lead to execution. This isn't some plausibly deniable fact. IBM execs did this knowing exactly what their equipment was used for. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/mar/29/humanities.highereducation https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/mar/29/humanities.hig... The serial numbers tattooed on Jews' arms from the concentration camps are IBM database primary keys.
- soperj 3y agoThey also supported Apartheid South Africa... so must have changed fairly recently.
- parabyl 3y agoI'm from SA and I knew about IBM and the Holocaust, but not Apartheid. Thanks for putting me onto that.
- eesmith 3y agoDid you know about Kodak and Apartheid? During the 1960‘s, Kodak developed a photo id system for the South African government which was better at taking pictures of darker skin. Due to employee and international pressure, in 1971 Kodak declared they were pulling out of South Africa. Privately though, they used Frank & Hirsch as an intermediary to continue to supply the passbooks until they were found out in 1977.
- asylteltine 3y agoIt shouldn’t be flagged but also let’s not pretend that IBM is this ibm. America also literally hired a ton of Nazis, but you wouldn’t blame any president in the last 20 years right? Well let’s be honest America would ABSOLUTELY do it again
- dudeinjapan 3y agoUSA hired the most talented Nazis after the war was won (Operation Paperclip). The alternative would be for them to go to the Soviets. This is different than selling war- and Holocaust-enabling machines before and during the war.
- dragontamer 3y agoI think people have forgotten how many big-businessmen of the 1920s were pro-Nazi and antisemetic. IBM, Ford, and Charles Lindbergh come to mind immediately. The 1920s and 1930s had a surprising amount of pro-Nazi sentiment. Remember, USA didn't learn about the Holocaust until 1943 or something (long after it started, and even then only as a rumor in niche papers). The proof of the Holocaust didn't hit until 1945 or later. Meanwhile, America First Committee and German-American Bund were pushing pro-Nazi sentiments. If we expand the political groups to the next degree of freedom (ex: Christian Front marched with German-American Bund. I don't know if you could call Christian Front a Nazi-organization, but they were 100% comfortable with marching with the literal Nazi groups), there were plenty of political groups who were "directly a Nazi supporter" and/or "were hosting political rallies and inviting the Nazis".
- timeon 3y agoFord was spreading antisemitic pamphlet long time after it was know that it is hoax.
- happytoexplain 3y agoThe information (e.g. your comment) should not be flagged. The snark (e.g. the parent) could reasonably be. "But it's true" can not stand alone as the sole measure of whether a comment is of high quality, worthwhile, curious, non-noisy, etc.
- takk309 3y agoIBM also manufactured guns for the Allies, so take that as you will. Having their businesses on both sides of the war co-opted by the various governments is a tough position for any business.
- scarface_74 3y agoThey were literally Nazis. There is no whataboutism here.
- local_crmdgeon 3y agoYes! Glad someone actually got it, it's hollow to do this without a mea culpa about running the logistics for the fucking Holocaust.
- pohl 3y agoThat just makes it all the more embarrassing for any advertisers who remain. They'll have been beaten in the race to distance their brands from such content by IB fucking M.
- TapamN 3y agoI have a German magazine/pamphlet from 1985 for IBM's 75th anniversary. It omits any reference to IBM's involvement in genealogical processing, and instead mentions things like the the Mark I, the Z3, and von Neumann. Low effort photos of the pages for the 30s and 40s: https://imgur.com/a/m65RCr3 https://imgur.com/a/m65RCr3
- gamblor956 3y agoSee also https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2023-11-17/backlash-spreads-over-musks-endorsement-of-antisemitic-post https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2023-11-17/backlash-s...
- malcolmgreaves 3y agoSadly, I believe this is just one more step in the inevitable outcome for Twitter. As a business, it's value prop. is an advertising platform. Like all social media, the value to advertising companies is to mix-in those ads alongside engaging user-generated content. There will always be associations with _other's content_ on such a platform. Advertisers don't want to do anything that would alienate or otherwise put-off their population of potential buyers. They want to avoid other strong emotions because they're trying to cultivate a specific emotional reaction: "I want to buy that thing!" No one is going to want to do that if they see extremely inflamatory content.
- alwaysrunning 3y ago"Advertisers don't want to do anything that would alienate or otherwise put-off their population of potential buyers" I'm not sure they think like this anymore.
- dragontamer 3y agoA big example of a faux pas within the past few years was some Airplane crash was being highlighted by the Twitter-algorithm as "Relevant to Airplanes", and a bunch of airlines were getting their advertising placed next to the crash. That pissed off ... some company... and apparently Twitter promised tools to help prevent this in the future. Those tools have been breaking this year. An advertisement's ability to generate good-will to the company is entirely dependent on context. Airplane advertisements (ie: Fly with Southwest) mean completely different things when they're next to airplane crashing news. ----------------------------- Simple rules like "If you have news about an airplane crash or other such disaster, please skip my advertisement until the next cycle" are a thing in traditional media. Especially for the high-paying industries. They expect an advertising partner to help control the context in which their advertisements are shown. EDIT: Another example is Micky Mouse or Tony the Tiger (and other such mascots) showing up next to Twitter Furry-porn. There's plenty of reasons for a company to try to control the context. In the case of furry-porn, its all legal (though uncomfortable), but it really makes animal-based mascots shown in a grossly different light and is terrible for messaging.
- jawns 3y ago> Meanwhile, the banks who funded Musk's acquisition are getting antsy. More fleeing advertisers means more lost revenue and more likelihood that the bonds held by the financiers are unsellable. This paragraph links to a related piece about CEO Yaccarino's efforts to save the company despite Musk seemingly doing his best to burn it all down: > Yaccarino is reportedly set to meet with Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, British bank Barclays, Japanese banks MUFG and Mizuho, and French financial institutions BNP Paribas and Société Générale to discuss plans not to leave them in the lurch as the value of X's assets have plummeted by two thirds in the past year. > With huge interest payments to those banks continuing to come due and X's value incredibly unclear - but unlikely to have appreciated - the banks might be getting impatient to see some improvement as Musk's first year of ownership draws to a close. I'm very curious to see what happens when X ends up defaulting on these obligations, as it sure looks like it will. Musk didn't seem too concerned about ignoring other contractual obligations, like rent and its AWS bill, nor about paying required severance for laid-off workers, to the tune of $500 million, according to one recent suit. But I imagine that he can't just skip out on his obligation to the banks without a severe reckoning. Can he?
- kibwen 3y ago"If you owe the bank $100 that's your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that's the bank's problem."
- dragontamer 3y agoExcept Twitter is grossly cash-flow negative, and will need new loans to continue surviving. I'm not sure if they're in a position to actively piss off their banking partners.
- AYBABTME 3y agoWhat kind of recourse do the banks have, in practical terms? My bet is that taking any action is just going to materialize their loss, and inaction and cutting X some/a lot of slack will allow them to perhaps not lose as much in the long term.
- trident5000 3y agoPeople who dont like the new twitter/X keep having temper tantrums and posting stories like this. But I have news for you. X is less than 10% of Elon Musks net worth and he doesnt give a shit. When are people going to realize this. You're not going to pressure Musk with advertizing revenue to do what you want.
- kibwen 3y agoI'm trying to imagine why anyone would feel the desire to write such a comment. Is that you, Elon?
- trident5000 3y agoSorry, I just find the perpetual meltdown from the left that they dont control twitter anymore to be fascinating, a bit hilarious and sort of pathetic. Just move on. The hyperbolic and seriously stretched stories of antisemitism just comes off as desperate.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- dudeinjapan 3y agoIt's rich that the left is calling Musk an anti-semite while chanting "From the river to the sea!" at rallies.
- nickthegreek 3y agoNo stretch is necessary. Musk has tweeted his feelings pretty plainly.
- trident5000 3y agoIf you actually read the tweet and understand what its about and follow up tweets it is absolutely a stretch to call him antisemitic and theres a lot of truth in there as well. You're reacting to headlines like most people.
- bkandel 3y ago> "So far this year, 99 percent of measured ad placements have appeared adjacent to content scoring above the brand safety 'floor' criteria set by [the Global Alliance for Responsible Media]." This is ... not entirely reassuring.
- pohl 3y agoBut also not at all surprising considering the platform’s trajectory and Elon’s personal amplification choices over the last year.
- dudeinjapan 3y agoThomas J. Watson is rolling in his grave.
- MichaelRazum 3y agoAs a user of Twitter/X, Instagram, and to some extent TikTok, I can say that, at least for me, Twitter/X is much cleaner and more aligned with the people I follow. In contrast, Instagram Reels are annoying; even after reporting certain content, the same or similar Reels reappear. We don't even need to discuss TikTok. From my perspective, it tends to have far more hateful content.
- scarface_74 3y agoThat may be true. But those people are toxic to advertisers
- MichaelRazum 3y agoGuess you are right. Anyway in my opinion, it actually doesn't matter where exactly the ads appear. I think to be fair, you would have to compare the feeds.
- scarface_74 3y agoI’m saying that advertisers don’t want to go near a business that caters to the modern version of “conservatives”. Look at the type of ads that you get on Newsmax, Redstate and FoxNews’ talk shows. By modern “conservatives”, I’m not talking about the Reagan/Bush/McCain/Romney type of conservative who are now out of favor by the Republican Party.
- aurizon 3y agoWith all the aversion to ads = blockers, add in the European tracking standards that will probably become ours as well, are we seeing the decline and fall of all tracking ads? I see podcasts are down 50-75% - not sure why? But at some point anything with ads changes from a product you want, to one you want to avoid = pay $ for what you want - ad free, and skip the rest?
- solardev 3y agoAren't these ads personalized / remarketed for the viewer, not contextually placed next to posts? Maybe IBM is just the Nazis' preferred brand? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust?wprov=sf...
- ChrisArchitect 3y ago[dupe] More yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38297685 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38297685
- aurizon 3y agoLooks like Media whatnot went looking for bad ads with anti semitic content = that made them a bad ad 'magnet' and wherever they went, their stick-ons attracted these bad ads = that is what tracking does. Browse to IBM and up come the trackers targeted to them and now you wear that same badge.
- WD40ForRust2 3y ago[dead]
- leetgirl83 3y agoThe media lies about Elon and his companies all the time and it's so blatantly obvious once you realize it https://youtu.be/u9l_2E4LPgY?si=_RjZjWTDsG8jb5Ol https://youtu.be/u9l_2E4LPgY?si=_RjZjWTDsG8jb5Ol