Ads for several prominent Canadian companies and organizations have been appearing in the feeds of extremist accounts on X, prompting some of them to pause advertising on the social media platform following an investigation by CBC News.
They join a growing number of brands that are backing away from X, formerly known as Twitter, amid the unchecked rise in hateful content and owner Elon Musk’s seeming endorsement of antisemitic and other far-right conspiracy theories.
A review by CBC News of about two dozen accounts linked to white nationalists, white supremacists, misogynists and other extremists found ads by major brands such as Samsung Canada, CF Montréal and Pathways Alliance, an oil industry lobby group.
Ads for Samsung’s new Galaxy flip phone appeared in the results when searching for a hashtag used to circulate racist content, where other posts included messages such as “Keep Europe White.”
Samsung ads also appeared in the feed of an account that the Tech Transparency Project, a watchdog group, flagged for spreading Islamophobic and antisemitic conspiracy theories.
In addition, Samsung ads were spotted in the feeds of Libs of TikTok, which LGBTQ advocates say stirs up anti-trans hatred, and Mike Cernovich, who has been described by extremism researchers as a “male supremacist.”
Samsung’s Canadian office did not respond to several emails sent by CBC News requesting comment.
An ad for Samsung Canada appears in the feed of an X account that the Tech Transparency Project, a watchdog group, has flagged for spreading Islamophobic and antisemitic conspiracy theories. (X)
Pathways Alliance, which lobbies on behalf of such companies as Cenovus Energy and Suncor, had ads appear in Carl Benjamin’s feed. Benjamin has been kicked off other social media platforms in the past for making racist and misogynistic comments.
The lobby group’s ads also appeared in the feed of an individual who leads a far-right fitness group and whose posts include images of his sunwheel tattoo, a symbol popular among neo-Nazis.
Media representatives from Pathways Alliance did not respond to emails from CBC News asking for comment.
B’nai Brith plans to continue advertising
Ads for Montreal’s Major League Soccer team, CF Montréal, and for the Jewish advocacy group B’nai Brith Canada appeared in the feed of Richard Spencer, a well-known white nationalist who helped lead a march in 2017 where followers chanted “Jews will not replace us.”
CF Montréal did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Michael Mostyn, CEO of B’nai Brith Canada, said despite his organization’s concerns about antisemitism on social media, it had no plans to stop advertising on X.
“B’nai Brith has made a conscious decision to remain on social media,” he said in an interview.
A B’nai Brith Canada ad appears on X within the feed of Richard Spencer, a white nationalist who helped lead a march in 2017 where anti-Jewish slogans were chanted. (Jonathan Montpetit/CBC)
“So if you’re making a conscious decision to stay in the social media space … there’s a lot of good and bad that comes with all of that.”
Other companies and organizations, though, said they halted advertising on X when informed by CBC News about where their ads were appearing.
Bell Media suspended advertising on X after it was informed that an ad for a subsidiary, the news division of Quebec TV network Noovo, appeared in the feed of the far-right fitness leader.
The ad appeared over a post that called journalists “priests of ruin” and featured the slogan “all journos are bastards.”
“Despite putting measures in place to protect Noovo from such a situation, it seems that X considered the offensive content from a third party to be moderate, which allowed our ad to appear alongside it,” Patrick Tremblay, a Bell Media spokesperson, said in a statement to CBC News last week.
“This situation is unacceptable. As a result, we have interrupted Bell Media advertising campaigns on X.”
Angus Reid, Sun Life cut ties with X
An ad for public opinion firm Angus Reid seeking survey participants appeared on an account called Anti White Watch, which researchers have noted spreads antisemitic and racist conspiracy theories.
“Our team met with X representatives in the past month to confirm that our ads account is set up with the most stringent sensitivity settings X offers. In this case, those controls appear to have failed,” Spencer Reynolds, director of marketing and communication at Angus Reid, said in an email.
“Angus Reid Forum has ceased all activity on X indefinitely pending a comprehensive review.”
Explosion of hate across social media platforms
Social media users from TikTok to X are being exposed to a deluge of different Islamophobic and antisemitic tropes — some of them perpetuated by people like Elon Musk, the owner of X.
The Appraisal Institute of Canada, an association of real estate valuation experts, paused its advertising campaign on X after it was informed its ads were appearing in the feeds of Carl Benjamin, Richard Spencer and an account linked to the white nationalist and antisemitic Groyper movement.
Ads for insurance giant Sun Life appeared in the feeds of multiple accounts of extremists, including Spencer’s, as part of a sponsored content campaign with the National Post.
Sun Life stopped advertising on X after Musk took over the platform last year, and the placement of the sponsored content ad was an error, a Sun Life representative said.
“We are very concerned that our ad appeared next to disturbing and hateful content and have had it removed from X,” Gannon Loftus, director of corporate communications, said in an email.
National Post-sponsored content bought by non-profits Mood Disorders Society of Canada and the Pedigree Foundation appeared in the feeds of Anti White Watch and Andrew Tate, a self-proclaimed misogynist influencer who is facing human trafficking charges in Romania. (Tate denies the charges.)
In a statement, a spokesperson for Mood Disorders Society of Canada said: “We do not support or endorse extremist views or any perspectives that could potentially harm those we serve.”
The spokesperson did not respond to a question about whether the organization intended to continue advertising on X.
Neither the National Post nor the Pedigree Foundation responded to emails sent by CBC News. (Disclosure: In 2015, prior to joining CBC News, Jonathan Montpetit did contract work for Postmedia’s sponsored content unit.)
Musk’s tumultuous tenure
Advertisers have been increasingly reticent about doing business with X since Musk took over the platform in October 2022. Ad revenues have dropped more than 50 per cent year-over-year in every month since Musk bought Twitter for an estimated $44 billion US, Reuters reported this fall.
Among his first moves was firing staff responsible for content moderation and disbanding an advisory group on harmful content. In late July, he changed the name to X from Twitter.
Musk, who is also CEO of electric vehicle maker Tesla and rocket company SpaceX, restored dozens of accounts that had been booted off the platform for violating community standards, including that of former U.S. president Donald Trump.
In July, Musk announced he was changing the name of Twitter to X. Among his first moves when he took over the platform in October 2022 was firing staff responsible for content moderation and disbanding an advisory group on harmful content. (Godofredo A. Vásquez/The Associated Press)
One study released in April found that hate speech levels on what was then still called Twitter quadrupled following Musk’s takeover.
“[Musk] has decided that anything goes, basically, unless he disagrees with it. And it’s been a disaster,” said Wendy Via, president and co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, a non-profit that monitors far-right activity and has worked with Twitter in the past.
When buying ads from X, advertisers can request they not appear alongside certain forms of content. But without systems in place to monitor and categorize content accurately, there are few assurances that an advertiser’s wishes are respected, Via said.
Devon MacDonald, president of the Toronto-based advertising firm Cairns Oneil, said he advised his clients last year to stop advertising on the platform.
“We reached out to Twitter at the time to ask them a little about what brand safety controls were going to be applied with this new vision for the platform, and they weren’t able to give us any satisfactory answer,” MacDonald said.
“A brand wants to communicate their brand message. They want to communicate with consumers in a positive way that puts their product in a positive position. Harmful content works against that for them.”
Spreading conspiracy theories costly
Musk’s own behaviour both on and off the social media platform has only compounded the unease felt by advertisers.
He has repeatedly used his account, which now has more than 165 million followers, to spread far-right conspiracy theories, including about an attack on former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband and about billionaire George Soros.
On Nov. 15, Musk endorsed an antisemitic conspiracy theory, drawing widespread condemnation, including from the White House.
Musk has repeatedly used his account, which now has more than 165 million followers, to spread far-right conspiracy theories. (Dado Ruvic/Reuters)
Within days, major brands, including the Walt Disney Company, Warner Bros. Discovery and IBM, announced they were pausing advertising campaigns on X.
Musk later apologized for the antisemitic remark, calling it “the dumbest post I’ve ever done,” but he also lashed out at advertisers that had left the platform.
“If somebody is going to try to blackmail me with advertising, blackmail me with money, go f–k yourself,” he told an audience in New York City in late November.
In recent weeks, Musk has boosted the “pizzagate” conspiracy theory, which falsely maintains that top Democrats are involved in a pedophile ring operated from a Washington, D.C., pizza shop.
“The recent comments from Elon Musk and the recent activity on the platform just solidifies our position and makes us feel comfortable with not directing our dollars that way,” MacDonald said.
X did not respond to a request for comment from CBC News.
How X’s ads work
The company recently sued the progressive media monitoring group Media Matters after it published findings that ads for major brands were being displayed in close proximity to hateful content.
In court documents, X said the findings were not representative of the average user’s experience of the platform and that only one per cent of measured ads in 2023 appeared alongside content deemed to harm brand safety.
CBC News discovered the Canadian ads mentioned above by using this journalist’s long-standing X account to search the feeds of 25 accounts and hashtags known to be associated with the far right. The process involved spot checks between Nov. 28 and Dec 8.
These companies and organizations were not the only ones whose ads appeared in the feeds of extremist accounts. CBC News also reviewed several hashtags and extremist accounts on X that contained no ads at all.
Why there’s a flood of misinformation about the Israel-Hamas war
‘I have never seen this amount of misinformation and disinformation surrounding a conflict,’ said Layla Mashkoor, a Dubai-based associate editor at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab in Washington, D.C. Misinformation experts say X, formerly known as Twitter, has played a key role in the volume of false information surrounding the Israel-Hamas war.
Ad placement on X is determined by who a user follows, and what they post, search, view and interact with, the company says on its website.
According to the “Why this ad” function on X, the ads seen by CBC News were influenced by the journalist’s age, geographic location (Montreal) and inferred interests.
CBC News also consulted the X accounts of two non-journalists in Montreal to see what ads were displayed when scrolling the feeds of far-right accounts.
These searches revealed ads that were similar to those seen on the CBC journalist’s phone, including the B’nai Brith ad on Spencer’s account, the Pathways ads on the far-right fitness leader’s account and the Samsung ads on the same account.
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — The most far-reaching of Ohio’s laws restricting abortion was struck down on Thursday by a county judge who said last year’s voter-approved amendment enshrining reproductive rights renders the so-called heartbeat law unconstitutional.
Enforcement of the 2019 law banning most abortions once cardiac activity is detected — as early as six weeks into pregnancy, before many women know they’re pregnant — had been paused pending the challenge before Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Christian Jenkins.
Jenkins said that when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and returned power over the abortion issue to the states, “Ohio’s Attorney General evidently didn’t get the memo.”
The judge said Republican Attorney General Dave Yost’s request to leave all but one provision of the law untouched even after a majority of Ohio’s voters passed an amendment protecting the right to pre-viability abortion “dispels the myth” that the high court’s decision simply gives states power over the issue.
“Despite the adoption of a broad and strongly worded constitutional amendment, in this case and others, the State of Ohio seeks not to uphold the constituional protection of abortion rights, but to diminish and limit it,” he wrote. Jenkins said his ruling upholds voters’ wishes.
Yost’s office said it was reviewing the order and would decide within 30 days whether to appeal.
“This is a very long, complicated decision covering many issues, many of which are issues of first impression,” the office said in a statement, meaning they have not been decided by a court before.
Jenkins’ decision comes in a lawsuit that the ACLU of Ohio, Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the law firm WilmerHale brought on behalf of a group of abortion providers in the state, the second round of litigation filed to challenge the law.
“This is a momentous ruling, showing the power of Ohio’s new Reproductive Freedom Amendment in practice,” Jessie Hill, cooperating attorney for the ACLU of Ohio, said in a statement. “The six-week ban is blatantly unconstitutional and has no place in our law.”
An initial lawsuit was brought in federal court in 2019, where the law was first blocked under the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. It was briefly allowed to go into effect in 2022 after Roe was overturned. Opponents of the law then turned to the state court system, where the ban was again put on hold. They argued the law violated protections in Ohio’s constitution that guarantee individual liberty and equal protection, and that it was unconstitutionally vague.
After his predecessor twice vetoed the measure citing Roe, Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signed the 2019 law once appointments by then-President Donald Trump had solidified the Supreme Court’s conservative majority and raised hopes among abortion opponents.
The Ohio litigation has unfolded alongside a national upheaval over abortion rights that followed the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe, including constitutional amendment pushes in Ohio and a host of other states. Issue 1, the amendment Ohio voters passed last year, gives every person in Ohio “the right to make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions.”
Yost acknowledged in court filings this spring that the amendment rendered the Ohio ban unconstitutional, but sought to maintain other elements of the 2019 law, including certain notification and reporting provisions.
Jenkins said retaining those elements would have meant subjecting doctors who perform abortions to felony criminal charges, fines, license suspensions or revocations, and civil claims of wrongful death — and requiring patients to make two in-person visits to their provider, wait 24 hours for the procedure and have their abortion recorded and reported.
The District of North Vancouver is getting ready for another bout of rain after an atmospheric river weather system drenched B.C.’s south coast last weekend, triggering a mudslide and localized flooding that killed at least three people.
The North Shore mountains could see another 75 millimetres of rain this weekend, and Lisa Muri, a councillor with the district, said staff were preparing by cleaning up culverts and placing sandbags throughout the community.
Muri said last weekend’s storm was unprecedented, bringing nearly 350 millimetres of rain to North Vancouver over three days.
The downpours caused creeks to swell and pick up wood debris and gravel that blocked culverts and drainage channels, she said, sending torrents of brown water down streets in the waterfront neighbourhood of Deep Cove.
District Mayor Mike Little said on Thursday that his daughter heard about the flooding in Deep Cove last Saturday and they headed to the area.
“We drove down, and within 10 minutes, the entire contents of Gallant Creek was overflowing over the road,” he said, adding they immediately called the fire department to come and block off nearby roadways.
“It was very, very shocking to see how much water was coming down the road.”
Several Deep Cove businesses have taken to social media to share their experiences with the flooding, including Caf/EH, a restaurant that shared a statement saying it is closed until further notice after sustaining extensive damage.
Little said Gallant Creek has seen other “significant rainfalls” in the last decade, and the district has been working to upgrade the catch basin system.
But last weekend’s rainfall was so intense, it overwhelmed the system, he said.
Ken Dosanjh, a meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada, said the rain in the forecast this weekend will be “nothing” compared with the last storm, and it will come in a series of “pulses” rather than forming an atmospheric river.
He said North Vancouver could see up to 75 millimetres of rain in the coming days, but it will fall over multiple days at a lower intensity than it did last weekend.
“With the atmospheric river, we saw precipitation rates on the order of 10, even upwards of 20 millimetres an hour, which is extremely high,” he said Thursday.
“In this case, we’re noticing precipitation rates kind of fall around four to eight millimetres per hour, maybe reaching 10 (in) extreme cases.”
Little said District of North Vancouver crews had been working throughout the week to ensure drainage basins are clear for this weekend’s expected rain.
“We’ve been out scooping up the rock and debris that came down the creeks and rivers out onto the streets all across the district,” he said Thursday.
Little said he’s confident the district’s systems will be able to handle the rain in the forecast for this weekend, though he’s concerned that certain areas are still “vulnerable to a moderate amount of rainfall” after the recent drenching.
He said the Woodlands area of North Vancouver has seen rocks falling into creeks since last weekend, and the channels need to be cleared out.
Little, whose basement was also flooded, said some homes in the district are “seriously damaged,” and it will take residents time to recover.
Muri, too, said the district has been working to mitigate the risks of heavy rains and flooding, but the sheer volume of rain last weekend was difficult to manage.
“It’s not like we’re going to be able to completely stop flooding in the future, because Mother Nature and climate change are very, very fierce,” she said.
“We can’t engineer ourselves out of climate change. We just have to prepare, be proactive and mitigate where we can.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 24, 2024.
JOYA-LA BARRETA ECOLOGICAL PARK, Mexico (AP) — As night descended, a rumble of frogs filled the air in this park outside the central Mexican city of Queretaro. In the sky, tiny stars appeared one by one, aligning into constellations.
Juan Carlos Hernández used his weight to adjust a large telescope. “Aim for me, Rich!” he yelled to his friend. Ricardo Soriano focused a green laser on a small patch of clouds, targeting where the Tsuchinshan-Atlas comet will soon be visible.
Hernández and other amateur astronomers worked to certify Joya-La Barreta Ecological Park last year as the first urban night sky space in Latin America by DarkSky International, an organization working to educate the public about the harm of indiscriminate lighting.
The park sitting at about 8,520 feet (2,600 meters) above sea level on the outskirts of Queretaro gives unobstructed access to the night sky. While over 200 dark sky places exist globally, Joya-La Barreta park is only one of 11 in areas that are considered urban. Its dark sky status is under constant threat, however, from increasing light pollution and urbanization.
Fading stars
Hernández, who just turned 40, has advocated relentlessly for the night sky for more than 20 years.
The president of Queretaro’s Astronomical Society and one of the founders of the stargazing tourism agency Astronite, the aerospace engineer by day has been chasing dark areas to observe the stars since he can remember.
“In 2014 you could see Omega (Centauri) sitting in the sky just above the city,” he said of a constellation over 17,000 light years away. “Today it’s unimaginable.”
Studies in Mexico show that increased urbanization and the need for city lighting in relation to security issues have caused more light contamination.
Fernando Ávila Castro of the Institute of Astronomy at the National Autonomous University of Mexico said a good analogy to explain light pollution is noise pollution.
“We constantly hear traffic noise from the street, but past a certain level that intensity becomes annoying, it doesn’t let you rest,” he said. “The same thing happens with light. Especially because all living beings have this internal clock, the circadian rhythm, which depends on the external values of light.”
“When we go to sleep, we forget that an entire world remains active,” Castro said.
Under the spotlight
The moon and stars are the light source guiding nocturnal activity for plants and animals — determining when animals emerge from hiding to find food, when plants reproduce and when certain animal species migrate. Artificial light has boomed since the industrial revolution in the 19th century, with efficient, affordable LEDs the latest type in wide use.
“There’s also this whole part about the biodiversity,” Analette Casazza, president of another Queretaro astronomy association, said while standing under the stars Saturday night. “We can hear the singing from all the animals that live here (in Joya-La Barreta). A lot of these pollinating animals, their activity is at night.”
Joya-La Barreta park hosts 123 species of vertebrates.
“The real challenge we have is to get citizens involved,” said María Guadalupe Espinosa de los Reyes Ayala, Queretaro’s environment secretary. “When people arrive at a place like this and realize how much it has to offer, they see the need to protect and conserve it.”
Conservation challenge
Hernández and other astronomy activists continue to fight to conserve the park’s nocturnal conditions and pass state regulations to reduce light pollution.
Hernández is also fighting for the enforcement of Mexico’s General Law of Ecological Balance, passed in 2021.
The law provides general recommendations to minimize light pollution. It’s been recognized in certain Mexican states like Sonora, Baja California and Hidalgo to protect observatories and professional astronomical observations. However in Queretaro, Hernández submitted an amendment to the state congress in 2023 to apply the regulations, but hasn’t had any luck.
Three times a year, the citizen astronomers at Joya-La Barreta have to submit light pollution reports to DarkSky. Increased light pollution levels or a lack of visitors to the park for astronomical activities can put their certification at risk. For Ricardo Soriano, another founder of Astronite, it’s a constant cause for concern.
“If contamination continues to grow and the government doesn’t support us, and doesn’t do more to see more beyond our certification, then we can lose it,” Soriano said. “We’ll have to leave Queretaro to try to find another park like this. I hope they can see it as something important for the state and community.”
On Saturday, as the comet came into focus, 10-year-old Matti González, accompanied by his parents Antonio González and Brenda Estrella, burst into a smile looking through his telescope.
“What are you going to dress up as for Halloween?” González asked his son. “An astronaut!” Matti yelled.
Throughout the night, Hernandez ran back and forth between attendees with a red headlight guiding his path. He explained certain celestial bodies or helped focus a scope on Saturn’s rings. Pausing for a moment, he thought about Carl Sagan, and how the astronomer said the same elements that form in the final gasps of a dying star — hydrogen, oxygen, carbon — are elements found in our bodies today.
“Looking at the sky is the most spiritual experience there can be,” Hernández said excitedly. “It’s the connection to our true molecular origins, but also to our cosmic destiny.”
Looking up at the stars, he said: “For me, the most important thing is that the future generations know that a resource their grandparents had is being lost.”
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