Good morning, Marketer, who’s protecting your brands? 

Brands rely heavily on digital publishers to make sure ads don’t end up next to inappropriate content. Publishers who fail to do that can quickly pay a price, just ask X/Twitter and Instagram.

When Elon Musk purchased X/Twitter he laid off a lot of people, including many responsible for brand and content safety. Even if they were still there how would they be able to protect brands or the platform from Musk himself? Yesterday the New York Times reported the company could lose up to $75 million as “dozens of major brands pause their marketing campaigns after its owner, Elon Musk, endorsed an antisemitic conspiracy theory this month.”

Many advertisers must be considering doing the same with Instagram. 

Attorneys general from 33 states accuse the company of routinely collecting personal information from children who it shouldn’t have allowed on the platform, according to documents unsealed Friday. Worse still, yesterday, a Wall Street Journal investigation found Instagram’s Reels algorithm “served jarring doses of salacious content…including risqué footage of children as well as overtly sexual adult videos — and ads for some of the biggest U.S. brands.”

There’s been a deathwatch on X/Twitter ever since Musk paid $44 billion for a service that was barely breaking even. Instagram, on the other hand, had $51.4 billion in revenue last year and is a huge part of parent company Meta’s return to profitability. More than two billion people use it at least once a month. Can brands afford to step away from that? If the accusations are true, they may have no choice.

Constantine von Hoffman,
Managing Editor