Advertisers leave Twitter over ad space shared with child pornography tweets

Major advertisers are pulling their business from Twitter after advertisements for their companies appeared alongside tweets soliciting child pornography. Dyson, Mazda, Forbes, PBS Kids and Direct TV have all removed their ads from the social media site. Those companies as well as Disney, NBC Universal, and Coca-Cola were among 30 advertisers that appeared on the profile pages of Twitter accounts peddling links to child porn.

Some of tweets include key words related to “rape” and “teens,” and appeared alongside promoted tweets from corporate advertisers, a Reuters exclusive review found. 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.

“We’re horrified,” David Maddocks, brand president at Cole Haan, told Reuters after being notified that the company’s ads appeared alongside such tweets. “Either Twitter is going to fix this, or we’ll fix it by any means we can, which includes not buying Twitter ads.”

In a statement, Twitter spokesperson Celeste Carswell said the company “has zero tolerance for child sexual exploitation” and is investing more resources dedicated to child safety and stopping child pornography from existing on the platform. Elon Musk said on Twitter the findings were “extremely concerning.”

The development comes as the battle between adult content site Pornhub and fellow social media app Instagram is escalating. Pornhub’s parent company is being sued for allegedly distributing child porn. Earlier this month, Instagram removed Pornhub’s account citing the account repeatedly violated the app’s community guidelines.

In an open letter to Instagram’s parent company Meta, Pornhub accused the company of double standards when it comes to celebrities posting nude content.

“While mainstream brands and celebrity accounts frequently feature nudity and overt sexuality with no repercussions, our fully PG accounts are regularly banned without adequate explanation,” the letter states. “Pornhub’s safe-for-work account has been disabled for three weeks. In the interim, Kim Kardashian has posted her fully exposed…to her 330 million followers without any restrictive action from Instagram. We are happy to see that Kim and the artistic team behind the image are free to share their work on the platform, but question why we are denied the same treatment.”

According to Instagram’s Community Guidelines, Instagram knows “there are times when people might want to share nude images that are artistic or creative in nature, but for a variety of reasons, we don’t allow nudity on Instagram.”