The increase in neo-Nazi propaganda on Twitter created more tension with advertisers since the massive overhaul in the company last year.

Since the Twitter overhaul after Elon Musk acquired the company, the platform has allowed content on the site that critics dismissed as hate speech, Business Insider reported.

The reorganization of the site's content moderation teams prompted advertisers like GM, Audi, and General Mills to pull their ads from Twitter due to what they said were concerns over brand safety. Musk also made account verification profitable by purchasing it instead of the site granting it to notable accounts.

When former NBCUniversal executive Linda Yaccarino took over as CEO, Musk told the Wall Street Journal "almost all" the advertisers returned or are deciding to return to Twitter.

However, Harvard Law School Cyberlaw Clinic instructor and civil rights lawyer Alejandra Caraballo thinks Twitter might not be a safer place for major brands to advertise.

Read Also: Twitter Accused of Massive Copyright Infringement by Music Publishers

Neo-Nazis on Twitter?

Caraballo observed an increase in the ads she saw on Twitter last Friday (June 16), making her curious whether the ads were also appearing on or near content posted by neo-Nazi or terrorist accounts she was following for research purposes.

Caraballo saw some ads appearing on her feed above posts from White Lives Matter California, an organization referred to as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. While she saw no ads appearing on the profile, she noticed retweeted portions of the 2017 propaganda film "Europa: The Last Battle."

"Europa" is a 12-hour-long 2017 propaganda film utilizing antisemitic themes to claim the Jews were the perpetrators of both World Wars to create the State of Israel. The long film revises history using archival footage cut with narration to argue that Adolf Hitler was saving Germany through its plan of committing genocide against the Jews, which most of the world knows as the Holocaust.

Strictly speaking, "Europa: The Last Battle" violated Twitter's rules against "media depicting hateful imagery."

The incident is the first challenge for Yaccarino as the new Twitter CEO after taking over the company from Musk.

Caraballo noticed the clips were being uploaded by verified accounts, making her curious about the trend's prevalence. Upon further searching, she saw ads appearing below all the questionable content. "[W]hen I was searching for it, I thought: 'you've got to be kidding me,'" she added.

During her deep dive, Caraballo noticed ads for Disney, ESPN, the NBA, Adobe, and Microsoft appeared under the search for "Europa last battle."

Upon this discovery, Caraballo wrote a Twitter thread about her discovery and encouraged her followers to conduct the same searches to confirm its veracity. She also noted the same results emerged when she modified the search to "last battle Europa."

Caraballo told the Insider that Twitter's response was to "[restrict] that specific search, and not anything else." She insisted "Europa: The Last Battle" was still an antisemitic neo-Nazi film that was still "racking up [thousands] of views.

"It's deeply distressing, and they don't seem to be taking any of this seriously," she added. The Insider requested responses from Disney, ESPN, the NBA, Adobe, and Microsoft but did not immediately respond for comment.

Caraballo: Subtle Extremism Still Gets Ads

Caraballo continued her search to find ads next to extreme content by searching for obvious slurs and obscure terms to observe which were moderated.

As a result, there were far more examples of ads next to hateful content that brands typically avoided. She further noted that while overt terms like "Nazi" or "Hitler" or phrases such as "grooming" or "groomer" would not propagate ads, the search phrase "groom" produced what she called "very horrible anti-LGBTQ content alongside ads."

Caraballo's observation presented a loophole for alleged hate speech through "things that are more nuanced or maybe not as well known to brand safety experts."

In addition, she expressed concern about Twitter directly supporting and funding such purported hate speech and supposedly spreading far-right extremist neo-nazi propaganda to all kinds of audiences. "It just goes to show that the site is rife with extremist content, and yet brands are returning," she said.

As of its article, the Insider's request for comment was only met with an automated response from Twitter's press department.

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