X ran ads on five accounts pushing lies and hate during UK riots
Elon Musk’s X is profiting from ads near posts from five UK accounts pushing lies and hate in the wake of the Southport attack
CCDH found that these accounts amassed 260 million views in the week following the Southport attack, and that X is presenting ads for well-known brands including GlaxoSmithKline, the British Medical Association, Betfred and the International Olympics Committee near their content.
About
Elon Musk’s social media platform X was running ads near posts from five key UK accounts pushing lies and hate in the wake of the Southport attack, according to new analysis.
The Center for Countering Digital Hate found that these accounts amassed 260 million views in the week following the Southport attack on 29 July, and that X is presenting ads for well-known brands including GlaxoSmithKline, the British Medical Association, Betfred and the International Olympics Committee near their content.
The analysis focused on five accounts that had posted false or misleading claims about the identity of the Southport attacker, who killed three girls in a stabbing attack. False claims about the attacker being a Muslim or migrant are believed to have contributed to riots across the UK including attacks on mosques and hotels housing asylum seekers.[i]
All five accounts studied have a verified ‘blue tick’, giving them the appearance of greater credibility and granting them prioritized ranking in X’s algorithm.[ii] They are:
- Andrew Tate, the misogynistic influencer whose post stating “ILLEGAL MIGRANT STABS 6 LITTLE GIRLS. WAKE UP.” received 15.2 million views according to X.[iii]
- Laurence Fox, a former GB News presenter who reacted to news of the Southport attack by posting “we need to permanently remove Islam from Great Britain.”[iv]
- Calvin Robinson, another former GB News presenter who posted during the riots that “Islam is evil and needs removing from the UK.”[v]
- Paul Golding, co-leader of Britain First who posted “the evidence is stacking up that the Southport attack was carried out by a migrant”.
- Ashlea Simon, co-leader of Britain First who said “We all know who’s responsible for the Southport attack. White Christian teens don’t stab children, Islamists do.”[vi] Elon Musk recently shared a fake post from Simon claiming that the UK was building “detainment camps” for rioters.[vii]
To find an estimate for how often X shows ads, the Center set up three accounts to follow only reinstated accounts and found that after scrolling through 1,039 posts, an ad appeared at an average rate of once every 6.7 posts.
Assuming this is representative of how often X serves ads, the five accounts are estimated to have generated 38.9 million ad impressions in the week after the Southport attack.
Industry information from the social media analytics firm Brandwatch shows that X ads cost an average of $6.46 per 1,000 impressions.[viii] Pulling these elements together shows that the accounts in our set could have generated an estimated £27,976 ($35,867) in daily ad revenue in the period studied. This would be equivalent to £10,211,366 across a full year, if the accounts were able to maintain the same number of average daily views.
New figures submitted by X to state regulators and acquired by Bloomberg show that the company’s revenue was down almost 40% in the first six months of 2023, compared to the same period in 2022.[ix] The company lost $456 million in the first quarter of 2023. X must also meet regular interest payments of around $300 million on the loans Musk took to purchase the platform in 2022.[x]
Shortly after taking over Twitter (now X), Elon Musk is reported to have reinstated nearly 12,000 accounts that had been banned under the platform’s previous leadership.[xi] This included the reinstatement of known neo-Nazis and spreaders of disinformation.[xii]
While X has policies against hateful conduct, which prohibit incitement and harassment of others on the basis of protected characteristics such as race and religion, previous research by the Center has shown these rules are not enforced, with 86% of hateful posts left in place without visible action one week after being reported.[xiii]
| Imran Ahmed, CEO & Founder of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, said: “Elon Musk’s X played a significant role in these riots, with algorithms turbocharging the spread of lies spread by bad actors he let back onto the platform, after the previous owners banned them for spreading hate and lies. “The truth is that Musk’s platform is willing to profit from hate and lies because it’s desperate for cash, losing hundreds of millions of dollars last year as it struggles to keep up with debt repayments. “It will carry on pumping out hate and lies for profit until regulators step in, hold them responsible and make it more expensive to harm our societies in this way.” |
Laurence Fox boasted of £1,000 profit in week of riots
Some verified users also qualify for X’s revenue sharing programme, allowing them to earn some of the ad revenue that X generates from their posts.[xiv]
At least one of accounts studied earned a share of X’s ad revenue in this period. Laurence Fox posted what appears to be a screenshot of X’s internal “creator earning dashboard”, showing that he earned £1,000.80 ($1,277.87) between 20 July and 2 August.[xv]
Fox previously shared a screenshot of his earnings from the revenue sharing programme in May, showing fortnightly payments ranging from $615 to $1,340.[xvi] Fox captioned the screenshot by saying “I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the trolls for feeding my kids”, demonstrating how hateful accounts thrive from criticism on platforms like X.[xvii]
Andrew Tate has also shared records of ad revenue payments from X, posting a screenshot in July 2023 in which the platform congratulated him on earning $20,379.[xviii]
Just 0.1% of posts featured fact-checks
Together, the five accounts in our analysis posted to X 1,060 times between 29 July and 5 August, but just one of these posts displayed a fact-check, equivalent to 0.1% of the total.
The only publicly displayed fact-check concerned the identity of the Southport attacker. It was attached to a post from Andrew Tate which used a photo of an arrest in Ireland in 2023 to falsely claim “This is the man ‘from Cardiff’ that murdered little girls. Straight off a boat.”[xix] The post received 4.3 million views despite carrying a fact-check.
X operates a system of user-generated fact-checks called Community Notes, which are written and rated by users. Any user can sign up to Community Notes, allowing them to propose and rate notes before they get displayed on posts. Only notes that have been rated ‘helpful’ by people with “diverse perspectives” will be displayed to all X users.[xx]
During the UK riots, Elon Musk claimed that Community Notes are “a clear and immediate way to refute anything false” posted to X, adding “the same is not true for legacy media who lie relentlessly”.[xxi]
Andrew Tate
116.2 million views
Andrew Tate referred to the Southport attack by stating: “ILLEGAL MIGRANT STABS 6 LITTLE GIRLS. WAKE UP.”[xxii] The post carries a label placed by X stating that its visibility on the platform has been limited, but it has still received 15.2 million views.
Andrew Tate stated that the attacker was “An illegal migrant arrived on a boat one month ago.” In the video beneath the post Tate goes on to explain how Great Britain is letting in immigrants who “rape women at random, who stab soldiers at random.”[xxiii]
Laurence Fox
51.7 million views
Laurence Fox shared a video in which he said of the Southport attacker: “If he’s on a watch list, pick him up, stick him on a boat and send him back to where he came from. He has absolutely no place anywhere near a British child”.[xxiv] Fox added: “Enough of this madness now. We need to permanently remove Islam from Great Britain. Completely and entirely.”
Laurence Fox posted about the Southport attacker, “If he doesn’t turn out to be a radicalised Islamist death cultist, it would make him an extremely rare exception to the ever so predictable rule when it comes to mass murder in the United Kingdom.”[xxv]
Calvin Robinson
12.9 million views
Calvin Robinson responded to criticism of Laurence Fox’s remarks suggesting the Southport attacker is Muslim or a migrant by saying “Laurence’s tweet was accurate; we do need to permanently remove Islam from Great Britain.”[xxvi]
Robinson also insisted that “The two-tiered approach by police to Britons versus Mohammedans in Leeds/Whitechapel in previous days caused the riots.”[xxvii] His post received 120,400 views.
Calvin Robinson responded to another X user who pointed out there are no “known connections between the [Southport] attacker and Islam”, insisting that “Islam is evil and needs removing from the UK. That is an evergreen truth, not random.”[xxviii]
Paul Golding
49.6 million views
Paul Golding posted “The evidence is stacking up that the Southport attack was carried out by a migrant”.[xxix] The post received 109,300 views.
Paul Golding shared a video with the caption “Two locals stabbed by Muslims, Police made no arrests”.[xxx] This proved to be false, with police stating that while two men had been hit with thrown objects, no stabbings had been reported.[xxxi] The post received 383,500 views and does not publicly display a fact-check.
During riots targeting hotels housing migrants, Paul Golding speculated that migrants in one hotel might possess a gun. The post was viewed 364,300 times.
Ashlea Simon
30 million views
Ashlea Simon posted a video with the caption: “We all know who’s responsible for the Southport attack. White Christian teens don’t stab children, Islamists do.” The post received 381,400 views.[xxxii]
Ashlea Simon posted: “In the UK Muslims are demanding that sharia law is implemented. I demand that we deport the lot of them. Who’s with me?”[xxxiii]
Ashlea Simon posted: “An African migrant killed our children in Southport. Feeling enraged yet?” The post received 137,000 views.[xxxiv]
Ads displayed near posts from the five accounts we studied
An ad for the pharmaceuticals company GSK (formerly GlaxoSmithKline) was shown near this post from Calvin Robinson in which he states “we do need to permanently remove Islam from Great Britain.”
An ad for the International Olympic Committee was shown next to a post from Paul Goulding in which he states the Archbishop of Canterbury is a “Muslim communist” for condemning the riots.[xxxv]
An ad for Betfred appeared near this post from Paul Golding, the co-leader of Britain First.
This ad for the British Medical Association (BMA) was displayed near a post from Britain First co-leader Ashlea Simon.
An ad for Manchester Central, an exhibition venue in Manchester, was displayed next to this post from Britain First co-leader Ashlea Simon falsely claiming that she knew the Southport attacker to be Muslim.
An ad for the online trading platform eToro was shown next to this post from Calvin Robinson in which he states “Islam is evil and needs removing from the UK.”
An ad for Trudy Carter appeared under a post by Laurence Fox, in which he states that “Islam needs to be removed from Britain”.[xxxvi]
An ad for Yauga appeared next to a post from Ashlea Simon in which she described migrants as “third worlders” and mocks LGBTQ+ police officers.[xxxvii]
An ad for Polden Publishing appeared under an ad by Andrew Tate in which he refers to the Stockport killer and characterises him as a rich immigrant on a boat.[xxxviii]
Methodology
This section outlines our methodology for selecting accounts to study, compiling data about their posts and arriving at an estimate of the ad revenue they generate for X.
How we selected accounts to study
Researchers started with a long list of accounts identified by journalists and other researchers to have posted hateful or false content about the Southport attack and subsequent riots. We then selected a short list of five accounts meeting these criteria:
- The account made misleading posts about the identity of the Southport attacker
- The account is being monitored by the social analytics tool Newswhip
- X presents ads under posts from the account
What data we recorded about accounts and posts
For each account on our short list, we used the social analytics tool Newswhip to extract a dataset of their posts in the week following the Southport attack, starting from the first post in our dataset about Southport at 1:42pm BST on 29 July to 1:42pm BST on 5 August.
The dataset of posts includes details on when they were posted, the content of the post, and how many likes, reposts and comments they received. We then manually inputted the number of views each post received, as displayed underneath the posts on X.
We also manually recorded whether each post featured a “Community Note”, X’s name for its system of user-generated fact-checks. Any user can sign up to propose and rate Community Notes before they get displayed on posts. Only notes that have been rated ‘helpful’ by people with “diverse perspectives” will be displayed to all X users.iii
We also recorded evidence that X displays ads under posts from each account.
How we estimated the ad revenue generated by accounts we studied
We conducted an experiment to estimate how often X presents ads next to posts on the platform’s home feed.[xxxix] For the purposes of this experiment, three accounts were created and set up to follow reinstated X accounts. Using these accounts, researchers recorded ten separate simulations where they loaded the home screen and scrolled until they reached 100 posts. In total, 156 ads were shown out of a total of 1,039 posts, meaning ads were shown at an average rate of once every 6.7 posts.
X ads cost an average of $6.46 per 1,000 views, according to the social media analytics firm Brandwatch, or $0.00646 each time an ad is viewed.[xl]
We can then estimate the ad revenue generated by posts in our dataset using this formula:
Estimated Revenue = (Total Views / 6.7) * $0.00646
Note that this is a simplified characterisation of the way that people view posts on X, as they may also view posts via the search function, on individual profiles or by accessing posts directly through a URL. While ads are served in these other contexts too, it is more complex to simulate user behaviour. Therefore, in the absence of any clear information from X on either ad frequency, the home feed analysis was used as a broad approximation of the number of ads displayed per post view.
References
[i] “The real story of the news website accused of fueling riots”, BBC, 8 August 2024, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y38gjp4ygo
[ii] “About X Premium”, X, 27 October 2023, https://help.twitter.com/en/using-x/x-premium
[iii] Andrew Tate, X, 29 July 2024, https://twitter.com/any/status/1818011145548218552
[iv] Laurence Fox, X, 29 July 2024, https://x.com/LozzaFox/status/1818038598069002467
[v] Calvin Robinson, X, 2 August 2024, https://x.com/calvinrobinson/status/1819403003742638178
[vi] Ashlea Simon, X, 29 July 2024, https://x.com/AshleaSimonBF/status/1817985447999717593
[vii] “Musk shares faked far-right ‘detainment camp’ for rioters post”, BBC News, 8 August 2024, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp35w0kj2y4o
[viii] “How Much Do Social Media Ads Cost on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn?”, Brandwatch, 22 February 2022, https://www.brandwatch.com/blog/how-much-do-social-media-ads-cost-on-facebook-instagram-twitter-and-linkedin/
[ix] “Documents Show How Musk’s X Plans to Become the Next Venmo”, Bloomberg, 18 June 2024, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-06-18/documents-show-how-musk-s-x-plans-to-become-the-next-venmo
[x] “Twitter Makes Second Interest Payment on Elon Musk’s Buyout Debt”, Bloomberg, 3 May 2023, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-05-03/twitter-said-to-make-second-interest-payment-on-musk-buyout-debt
[xi] “Elon Has Restored Nearly 12,000 Banned Twitter Accounts, Data Shows”, Gizmodo, 3 December 2022, https://gizmodo.com/elon-musk-twitter-12000-banned-accounts-restored-data-1849848764
[xii] “The mass unbanning of suspended Twitter users is underway”, CNN, 8 December 2022, https://edition.cnn.com/2022/12/08/tech/twitter-unbanned-users-returning/index.html
[xiii] “X Content Moderation Failure”, Center for Countering Digital Hate, 13 September 2023, https://counterhate.com/research/twitter-x-continues-to-host-posts-reported-for-extreme-hate-speech/
[xiv] “Ads Revenue Sharing”, X, accessed 12 August 2024, https://help.x.com/en/using-x/creator-ads-revenue-sharing
[xv] Laurence Fox, X, 6 August 2024, https://x.com/LozzaFox/status/1820794862880301355
[xvi] Laurence Fox, X, 10 May 2024, https://twitter.com/LozzaFox/status/1789029432302203037
[xvii] ibid.
[xviii] Andrew Tate, X, 13 July 2023, https://twitter.com/Cobratate/status/1679545851893391369
[xix] Andrew Tate, X, 30 July 2024, https://twitter.com/Cobratate/status/1818323423929479567
[xx] “Community Notes: a collaborative way to add helpful context to posts and keep people better informed”, X. accessed 6 August 2024, https://communitynotes.x.com/guide/en/about/introduction
[xxi] Elon Musk, X, 6 August 2024, https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1820783473021391073
[xxii] Andrew Tate, X, 29 July 2024, https://twitter.com/any/status/1818011145548218552
[xxiii] Andrew Tate, X, 29 July 2024, https://x.com/Cobratate/status/1818002494351724954
[xxiv] Laurence Fox, X, 29 July 2024, https://x.com/LozzaFox/status/1818038598069002467
[xxv] Laurence Fox, X, 1 August 2024, https://x.com/LozzaFox/status/1819028097083093413
[xxvi] Calvin Robinson, X, 2 August 2024, https://x.com/calvinrobinson/status/1819351716036214918
[xxvii] ibid.
[xxviii] Calvin Robinson, X, 2 August 2024, https://x.com/calvinrobinson/status/1819403003742638178
[xxix] Paul Golding, X, 28 July 2024, https://twitter.com/any/status/1817944026122715319
[xxx] Paul Golding, X, 3 August 2024, https://twitter.com/GoldingBF/status/1819749314677055830
[xxxi] “Claim two protesters were ‘stabbed by Muslims in Stoke’ is false”, Full Fact, 5 August 2024, https://fullfact.org/online/two-stabbings-stoke-false/
[xxxii] Ashlea Simon, X, 29 July 2024, https://x.com/AshleaSimonBF/status/1817985447999717593
[xxxiii] Ashlea Simon, X, 3 August 2024, https://x.com/AshleaSimonBF/status/1819780404439662669
[xxxiv] Ashlea Simon, X, 1 August 2024, https://x.com/AshleaSimonBF/status/1818973629742284846
[xxxv] Paul Golding, X, 11 August 2024, https://x.com/GoldingBF/status/1822661630674530761
IOC MEDIA, X, 12 August 2024, https://x.com/iocmedia/status/1822748717063041056
[xxxvi] Laurence Fox, X, 4 August 2024, https://x.com/LozzaFox/status/1820140242948780330
Trudy Carter, X, https://x.com/TrudyCarteRR/status/1808850866436215113
[xxxvii] Ashlea Simon, X, 12 August 2024, https://x.com/AshleaSimonBF/status/1822993190552547482
Yauga, X, 12 August 2024, https://x.com/yauga_wellbeing/status/1821537856881348886
[xxxviii] Andrew Tate, X, 1 August 2024, https://x.com/Cobratate/status/1819035477799768396
Polden Publishing, X, https://x.com/PoldenPublish/status/1821870953581756877
[xxxix] “Toxic Twitter”, Center for Countering Digital Hate, 9 February 2023, https://counterhate.com/research/toxic-twitter/
[xl] “How Much Do Social Media Ads Cost on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn?”, Brandwatch, 22 February 2022, https://www.brandwatch.com/blog/how-much-do-social-media-ads-cost-on-facebook-instagram-twitter-and-linkedin/