Lionsgate has suspended all advertising on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, the entertainment giant said Friday afternoon.
A company spokesperson who confirmed the decision to CNN did not disclose a specific reason for the move and did not specify how much money Lionsgate had planned to spend advertising on X. Lionsgate’s decision was first reported by Bloomberg.
But the decision by one of the world’s most prominent film and television companies suggests an intensifying advertiser backlash to X after the social media platform’s owner, Elon Musk, embraced an antisemitic conspiracy theory popular among White supremacists.
CNN has reached out to X for comment.
Lionsgate’s ad pause follows a similar move on Thursday by IBM, whose ads were found appearing alongside pro-Nazi content. In a statement, IBM explicitly called out what it described as an “entirely unacceptable situation.”
“IBM has zero tolerance for hate speech and discrimination and we have immediately suspended all advertising on X while we investigate this entirely unacceptable situation,” an IBM spokesperson said.
X CEO Linda Yaccarino said in a post Thursday afternoon that the company’s position is that “discrimination by everyone should STOP across the board – I think that’s something we can and should all agree on.” She added: “When it comes to this platform – X has also been extremely clear about our efforts to combat antisemitism and discrimination. There’s no place for it anywhere in the world – it’s ugly and wrong. Full stop.”
An analysis by the watchdog group Media Matters found this week that in addition to IBM, ads by Apple, Comcast, NBC and Oracle had appeared alongside similar content.
Spokespersons for Apple, Comcast, NBCU and Oracle have not responded to requests for comment.
A spokesperson for X said the pro-Nazi accounts identified in Thursday’s Media Matters report would no longer be eligible for monetization, meaning ads would no longer be run on those pages.
In August, two other brands, NCTA — the Internet and Television Association — and Gilead Sciences paused their spending on X after their ads were also run alongside pro-Nazi content.
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