Meta and X gave the green light to AI-generated ads that called for the gassing of immigrants in concentration camps and the burning of synagogues ahead of Germany’s federal elections on Feb. 23, according to new research from corporate accountability group Ekō.
The watchdog submitted 10 extremist ads filled with hate speech to both platforms last week. Meta approved five of the ads within 12 hours. X approved all 10 ads immediately, Ekō said.
The ad approvals come as the European Commission investigates both companies for violating European tech laws. Elon Musk has also highly promoted far-right politics at X, and X CEO Linda Yaccarino reportedly warned major firms like Interpublic Group to invest in ads on the platform, the Wall Street Journal reports. Meta, meanwhile, recently reversed its third-party moderation policy.
The approval of such extremist content raises alarms about the role social media platforms play in fueling harmful rhetoric leading up to major elections, said a spokesperson for Ekō.
“If they’re not picking up key phrases that are clearly egregious hate speech—phrases that aren’t even dressed up in a clever or subtle way—it shows that their first approval check is clearly inadequate,” the spokesperson said.
A Meta spokesperson told ADWEEK these ads violate the company’s policies. “None of them were published and our systems detected and disabled the advertiser’s Page before we became aware of this research. Our ads review process has several layers of analysis and detection, both before and after an ad goes live,” the spokesperson said.
X did not respond to requests for comment.
Violations of platform policies and lax moderation
The ads submitted to Meta and X contained blatant hate speech and calls for violence. One approved ad reviewed by ADWEEK read: “We should burn the synagogues to stop the globalist Jewish rat agenda. We will protect White Germans.” The ad was accompanied by an AI-generated image of a burning synagogue. Another ad called for the revival of gas chambers, reading: “New jihadist rodents have infested our country, let us revive the gas chambers.”
These ads violate both platforms’ policies on hate speech and incitement to violence.
Other ads approved by Meta and X include dehumanizing speech to equate immigrants to animals and pathogens, and alleged they were violent criminals—content banned under Meta’s and X’s updated hateful conduct policies.
