As the latest war between Israel and Hamas enters two weeks, a flood of videos and photos purporting to depict the ongoing unrest have flooded social media platforms. So far, Elon Musk's X Corp, formerly known as Twitter, is fighting a war against misinformation, making advertisers more wary of returning to the embattled platform.


According to a NewsGuard analysis shared with Adweek, the platform's "certified" users (who now pay to get blue checks) pushed 74% of the most viral disinformation on Platform X related to the Israel-Hamas war.

"This is another nail in the coffin of X in terms of decreased trust among advertisers," said Ruben Schreurs, chief strategy officer at Ebiquity, an independent marketing and media consulting firm. "They are executing on the decision not to go back to X."

In the first week of the conflict, which began on October 7, News Ratings analyzed the top 250 posts containing misinformation that received the most likes, retweets, replies and bookmarks and found that 186 accounts out of 250 posts, or 74%, were verified by X's blue label. NewsGuard primarily identifies misinformation through a combination of humans and artificial intelligence.

Verified accounts promoted 10 pieces of false information, such as claims that Ukraine sold weapons to Hamas and videos of senior Israeli officials captured by Hamas.

According to NewsGuard statistics, these posts promoting false information received a total of 1,349,979 likes, reposts, replies and bookmarks within a week, and were viewed more than 100 million times worldwide.

As advertisers' doubts about X's platform grow, combating wartime misinformation has become X's biggest content moderation test. In March, Musk began removing account checks and selling verification (blue checkmarks), a feature once reserved for high-profile users and professional journalists. Musk has also since cut the number of content and security policy positions within the company.

According to NewsGuard, "This decision (to make people pay for verification) is a boon to bad actors who share misinformation about the Israel-Hamas war."

Under Musk, advertisers have become increasingly uneasy, leading to a halt in ad spending. According to Reuters, the platform's advertising revenue has declined month over month since the acquisition. At the same time, according to the 2023 State of Social Media CPM report released by Gupta Media, advertising fees have plummeted by more than 75%, with X hitting a three-year low, with CPM as low as 61 cents as of August.

Three sources told Adweek that the hiring of former NBCUniversal advertising executive Linda Yaccarino as CEO in June this year has increased advertiser confidence to a certain extent, but the proliferation of disturbing content on X has further eroded advertiser trust.

After discussions with senior leadership at 75 clients, "the vast majority of our brand advertisers are very concerned about the ongoing misinformation," Schreurs said. Audi and Sony are both Ebiquity clients, with the former stopping organic advertising on the X in November, while Sony continues to do so.

The platform’s efforts to curb rampant misinformation have made brand leaders more cautious about returning to the platform.

Christopher Spong, deputy director of social media and communications at media agency Collective Measures, told Adweek: "Most brand partners were hoping that Jacarino would bring some maturity to the platform. It quickly became clear that Musk was still running the show."

Meanwhile, European regulators last week formally requested information from Musk's platform on its procedures and practices for dealing with hate speech, the spread of misinformation and violent terrorist content related to the Israel-Hamas war.

The EU mark is a "key driver of immediate concern" for Ebiquity brand partners.

In response, Yaccarino sent a letter to the EU outlining the platform's efforts to curb war-related disinformation, including "reallocating resources" and "refocusing internal teams." X has launched new enhancements to its "Community Notes", a crowdsourced fact-checking feature, and has taken action to remove hundreds of accounts linked to Hamas.

However, according to NewsGuard's analysis, Community Notes failed to debunk misinformation 68% of the time. Of the 250 posts that perpetuated wartime misinformation, only 79 were flagged by the community notes platform.