US retail giant joins X boycott

02.12.2023 19:34

US retail giant joins X boycott
Photo: AFP / MANDEL NGAN / AFP

US retail giant Walmart has announced it is suspending advertising on X (formerly Twitter), becoming the latest major brand to abandon the platform.

Corporations including Apple, Coca-Cola and Disney have halted their paid ads on X in recent weeks.

“We've found some other platforms better for reaching our customers,” a Walmart spokesperson said, explaining the decision.

Walmart is the largest retailer in the US, with $500 billion in domestic sales in 2022.

The mass exodus from X was sparked in November, when the advocacy group Media Matters for America claimed the platform had posted “pro-Nazi” and “anti-Semitic” content next to the posts of major advertisers.

X has denied the findings, publishing an analysis suggesting Media Matters had manipulated the algorithms with fake accounts.

Owner Elon Musk personally came under fire in November after he publicly endorsed an antisemitic conspiracy theory in a post on X.

The tech tycoon agreed with a user who said Jews hold a “dialectical hatred” of white people, sparking responding with: “You have said the actual truth.” Later Musk later backtracked, calling his reply “one of the most foolish” posts he’d ever made on X.

Since buying Twitter in October 2022, Musk has been continually accused by the mainstream media and the political left of failing to adequately moderate content.

Starting in December last year, Musk countered many of those allegations by releasing the Twitter Files – a select series of internal documents given to journalists – detailing the company’s activities under previous management.

In one of the most damning examples, it emerged that Twitter had helped block the dissemination of a bombshell report alleging influence-peddling by Joe Biden’s family, just three weeks before he was elected president.

When Musk purchased Twitter for an estimated $44 billion, he fired many of Twitter’s former staffers, and unbanned many accounts in the name of promoting free speech.

Speaking earlier this week at a conference in New York, Elon Musk struck a defiant tone on the exit of major advertisers, telling them to “go f--- yourself.”