X, formerly known as Twitter, has unveiled new features aimed at providing advertisers with increased control over the content that appears alongside their ads. These features, called “sensitivity settings,” empower advertisers to select specific content filtering options for their ads.
This development comes as X seeks to regain the trust of advertisers, given that its advertising revenue has witnessed a significant decline of 50 percent since Elon Musk assumed leadership. The decline is attributed to brands reducing their spending on the platform due to concerns about the prevalence of hate speech and objectionable content. In response, watchdog organizations have reported instances where prominent brands’ advertisements were displayed alongside content from neo-Nazi accounts, Holocaust deniers, and users who were previously suspended.
The newly introduced tool leverages machine learning to minimize the proximity of ads to various types of content based on a brand’s chosen sensitivity threshold for an upcoming advertising campaign. The tool currently offers two distinct settings: “conservative” and “standard.” It is important to note that irrespective of the settings chosen by advertisers, any content that violates platform rules will be excluded from ad displays.
In the “conservative” setting, ads will be prevented from appearing adjacent to “targeted hate speech, sexual content, gratuitous gore, excessive profanity, obscenity, spam, and drug-related content” within the “for You” timeline. On the other hand, the “standard” option would also steer clear of these topics, while permitting the inclusion of spam and content related to drugs. Furthermore, X intends to introduce a “relaxed” setting, allowing advertisers to maximize their ad reach with minimal restrictions on content adjacency.
It’s worth noting that X has previously taken steps to enhance brand safety. In December, the company introduced keyword-based “adjacency controls,” which aimed to limit exposure to problematic content for ad-buyers. However, these changes appear to have had a limited impact on X’s advertising business.
Despite the company’s claims of effectively curbing hate speech on its platform, researchers have presented a different perspective. A recent report from Bloomberg highlighted research conducted by the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), which indicated a surge in hate speech in terms of both volume and engagement following Elon Musk’s takeover of the company. X has contested these findings and has taken legal action against CCDH, alleging unauthorized data scraping.
