Some misinformation “super spreaders” are potentially earning cash through X’s ad revenue sharing program.
NewsGuard, a for-profit misinformation watchdog organization released a report this week. The repot identified ads for 86 major advertisers that were displayed on viral posts that were either false or were advancing egregiously misleading claims about the Israel-Hamas war. Those posts were seen by a cumulative 92 million X users.
Overall, NewsGuard identified 200 ads from 86 major brands, nonprofits, educational institutions, and governments that appeared below 24 of the 30 offending tweets (the other six did not display ads).
While Twitter/X owner Elon Musk has said that commentators whose posts are flagged by Community Notes won’t be eligible to make money from ad dollars on the offending posts, NewsGuard found ads for 70 unique major organizations on 14 of the 15 tweets advancing war-related misinformation that did not feature a Community Note fact-check.
Not only does that mean that some organizations were spending money advertising dollars to have their ads shown beside misinformation, but it also means that some of the purveyors of that misinformation could potentially be making money off their posts through X’s ad revenue sharing program.
In order to be eligible for the program users would also need to subscribe to X Premium, have 5 million organic impressions across there posts over the past 3 months, and have a minimum of 500 followers — NewsGuard found that 10 of the “super-spreader” accents sharing misinformation about the war met that criteria.
NewsGuard’s findings come just a week after MediaMatters published a report showing that ads on X were being shown beside pro-Nazi and antisemitic posts. A number of advertisers paused or removed their ads from the platform after that report, ultimately leading Musk to sue to organization for what he called “a fraudulent attack on our company.”
X’s advertiser exodus could potentially cost the company $75 million in lost revenue before the end of the year.