Bol and Dutch State-owned lottery firm pulling all advertising off X

The Dutch State-owned gambling company, Nederlandse Loterij, will pull its advertising from social media platform X. Additionally, online retailer Bol, will no longer create its own tweets for the site.

Recently, several major companies, such as IBM and Apple, announced that they will stop advertising on the platform because of anti-Jewish content, including posts where Adolf Hitler or the Third Reich were praised. Moderation of hate speech has been lacking on the site, and company's owner, Elon Musk, has also signaled his own support for anti-Semitic conspiracy theories suggesting Jews are responsible for sending "hordes of minorities" to Western countries.

Since then, advertisers said they planned to leave the platform. Aside from general concerns about hate speech, brands do not want to appear alongside such content. The Nederlandse Loterij is the parent company for the national lotteries Staatsloterij and Lotto, and also runs the Dutch version of Eurojackpot. The company also owns the TOTO online gambling brands, the Lucky Day keno draw, and several scratch-off tickets.

Online retailer Bol already stopped advertising on X when Musk took over the platform when it was known as Twitter. The webshop no longer wants to associate its brand with X "due to a lack of content moderation."

On Thursday, Bol said it will no longer post its own tweets on the platform, either. "We will still monitor it, and will respond to people who ask customer-related questions via this channel; and we will forward them to our Customer Service," a spokesperson said.

VodafoneZiggo still advertises on X, but said it has taken extra measures to ensure that advertisements are not shown in the context of wars, or in combination with hateful messages. The telecom provider uses "safety controls," a spokesperson explained.

"X keeps track of what types of messages are posted, and which specific words are used. As an advertiser, you can exclude certain messages and ensure that your advertisements are only shown with certain content." The company said it is considering whether X still "fits VodafoneZiggo, and is a suitable platform for placing advertisements."

According to Henriette van Swinderen, director of Dutch advertisers association Bond van Adverteerders, said expenditure on advertisements on X has definitely been impacted. “Brands do not want to be seen in the vicinity of fake news, hate messages or other harmful content, like discriminatory messages,” said Van Swinderen.

She also mentioned that X has never been an extremely important medium for Dutch advertisers.