Hyundai pauses ads on X over anti-Semitic posts

Automaker Hyundai has paused ads on social media platform X after a sponsored post from the company was featured alongside anti-Semitic and pro-Nazi posts, the company confirmed to The Hill.

“We have paused our ads on X and are speaking directly with X about brand safety to ensure this issue is resolved,” Hyundai said in a statement to The Hill.

NBC News first reported the ad pause.

Freelance journalist Nancy Levine Stearns posted a screenshot from the ad appearing in the feed of a user X who frequently posts Holocaust denial and anti-Semitic comments. The ad was alongside a post titled “Denial of Violent Event” in relation to the Holocaust, Joe Benarroch, head of business operations at X, confirmed to The Hill.

The account, which contained anti-Semitic tropes in its biography, was later suspended, according to Benarroch.

Hyundai ran the ad for about six weeks focusing on climate change to “reach” policymakers, he added.

“Hyundai’s campaign was done self-service, without support from X’s direct sales team – and unfortunately, their Brunswick agency did not activate the Brand Safety settings controls available to them,” Benarroch wrote in a statement, adding that X worked with Brunswick to correct the ad settings.

“Hyundai is considering its next steps as it updates the six-week campaign,” he continued.

The Hill has reached out to Brunswick for further comment.

Platform X has faced increasing scrutiny over its content moderation policies since it was purchased in 2022 by technology entrepreneur Elon Musk, who reversed some restrictive policies.

The Anti-Defamation League in November 2022 he said There was a 61.3% increase in the volume of posts referencing “Jews” or “Judaism” with anti-Semitic content in the two weeks after Musk took control of X.

Musk and his social media platform came under renewed fire last fall after he apparently endorsed an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory that suggested anti-Semitism was practiced by minorities and that Jewish people were to blame.

A number of high-profile companies pulled their ads after reports circulated that their ads were placed alongside posts celebrating Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party on the platform.