Some people who pay for special subscriptions on X, which used to be called Twitter, and share wrong information might get money from X’s ad program. This is what NewsGuard, a group that checks for false information and makes money from it, found in a report.
The report looked at 30 posts from November 13th to the 22nd. These posts said things that aren’t true about the Israel-Hamas war and got a total of 92 million views.
Misinformation Super-Spreaders and Concerns Over X’s Ad Placements
NewsGuard talked about 10 accounts that had over 100,000 followers each. This is one way NewsGuard decides if an account is a big spreader of false information. They call them “misinformation super-spreaders.”
Veena McCoole, who works in communications as the Vice President at NewsGuard, shared the 30 posts in the report that spread some of the most serious false or misleading information about the Israel-Hamas war.
This information had already been proven false in NewsGuard’s Misinformation Fingerprints database, which keeps track of the most significant false claims online. She mentioned that it’s reasonable to assume that these posts are not the only ones spreading misinformation or hate speech that might be eligible for X’s revenue sharing.
NewsGuard’s discoveries align with other recent reports raising concerns about X placing advertisements on content that promotes hate speech or false information. Just this week, X filed a lawsuit against Media Matters because of a report that revealed significant advertisers’ content appearing alongside pro-Nazi material.
This led major companies such as Apple and Disney to withdraw their ads and cease posting on X. The report also highlighted that X’s owner, Elon Musk, had expressed support for an antisemitic post. In September, the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) released a report outlining instances of hate speech on X that the platform was not taking down.
X Deals with NewsGuard Report and Revenue-Sharing Rules
On Tuesday, an official account from X announced that NewsGuard was going to release the report and hinted that the company would only reveal its research data if you pay. The report included a spreadsheet with the data, meaning the posts they examined. When contacted for a comment, X’s press line sent an automated email response saying they were busy and to check back later.
Back in October, Musk mentioned that X wouldn’t share earnings with posts corrected by Community Notes, its crowd-sourced moderation tool. According to X’s terms for revenue sharing, they won’t pay out if they find any activity that they think breaks the X User Agreement.
The term “X User Agreement” can sometimes mean one specific document, the X terms of service or a collection of rules scattered across various pages. None of these explicitly mentions the exclusion related to Community Notes. Other types of content listed as violations encompass “misleading media” that is “deceptively altered, manipulated, or fabricated,” as well as any content shared in a misleading way or with false context.
Analysis of NewsGuard’s Findings
NewsGuard’s analysts documented 30 posts containing “false or highly misleading claims about the Israel-Hamas war.” According to the report, 24 of these posts displayed “200 ads from 86 major brands, nonprofits, educational institutions, and governments” beneath them.
Among these 30 posts, 15 had Community Notes attached to them, which, as per Musk’s statement on revenue, should disqualify them. However, the remaining 15 had no such notes, and out of those, 14 featured ads for “70 unique major organizations.”
NewsGuard mentioned that advertisements for companies such as Oracle, Pizza Hut, and Anker were seen under posts making claims like Hamas’ attacks on October 7th being “false flags” or suggesting that conservative podcaster Ben Shapiro shared an AI-generated image of a child killed by Hamas. As of now, neither of these linked posts has a Community Note attached, and they have been viewed 1.1 million and 22.4 million times, respectively.
Misleading posts also had ads from Airbnb and Asus under them. Some posts featured ads for government organizations such as the FBI and Taiwan’s Ministry of Culture. Nonprofits like the UK Royal Society of Chemistry and the University of Baltimore were reportedly associated with these posts as well.
Conclusion
NewsGuard discovered that some paid subscribers on X spreading misinformation about the Israel-Hamas war may qualify for X’s ad revenue sharing. Concerns include major brands’ ads appearing on false content, leading to withdrawals. X’s response and policies on revenue-sharing raise questions, emphasizing the need for clearer content moderation and ad placement policies.
