Major brands pull ads from Twitter after appearing next to child porn tweets

Some brands including Forbes, Dyson, Mazda, PBS Kids, Walt Disney, NBCUniversal, Cole Haan, and Coca-Cola have suspended their advertising on Twitter after their promotions reportedly appeared next to tweets seeking child pornography, Reuters reported. Over 30 advertisers were said to have appeared on the profiles of Twitter accounts that had links to child pornography, Reuters said after reviewing accounts highlighted in new research by cybersecurity firm Ghost Data covering child sex abuse online. The ads appeared alongside tweets that contained keywords associated with “rape” and “teens”. According to Reuters, an ad by Cole Haan appeared next to a tweet which said the user was “trading teen/child content”. Cole Haan’s brand president David Maddocks told Reuters that the brand is horrified and that Twitter is either going to fix it or Cole Haan will “fix it by any means [it] can, which includes not buying Twitter ads”. Meanwhile, Forbes’ spokesperson told MARKETING-INTERACTIVE: “We were horrified to learn about this and we immediately ceased any paid activity on Twitter. We have no plans to resume our marketing on Twitter this time. They need to fix this mess.” At the same time, Twitter’s spokesperson told MARKETING-INTERACTIVE that it is working closely with its clients…
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