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A post by entertainer Song Eun-yi explaining her likeness was being used without permission for online ads. (screen capture from @saru337 on Instagram)

What advertiser would want their ads on social media platforms rife with celebrity impersonators and vulgar content? Advertisers are turning away from X, where false information is running rampant, and Facebook, where advertisements impersonating public figures are all the rage.

Recently, the US market research company Guideline put out an analysis showing that X featured 54% fewer advertisements on its platform from September 2022 to August 2023 compared to the previous year. During the same time period, advertising sales increased by 72% for TikTok, 21% for Reddit, and 2% for Facebook.

On Oct. 25, the Wall Street Journal noted that advertising sales decreased for X because content moderation on the platform was watered down after Elon Musk bought Twitter last fall and dismantled its ethics and AI teams while firing 15% of employees working in the trust and safety department.

X was recently named the largest spreader of false information when it comes to the conflict between Israel and Hamas. The European Union is investigating X according to its Digital Services Act, which stipulates that major online platforms that do not tackle illegal content should be fined. Some accounts that disseminated false information had obtained the “blue check” verification from X simply by paying the subscription fee.

All this transpiring on X’s feed is prompting advertisers to spurn the platform. On Oct. 25, Bloomberg reported that X’s biggest advertisers like Coca-Cola and IBM have been cutting down their ads on X, while the market researcher Sensor Tower analyzed that X’s top five advertisers reduced their ad spending on X by 67% compared to before Musk’s acquisition of the company.

The domestic advertising industry’s stance on Facebook, which has taken little to no action regarding rampant advertisements on its platform impersonating household names because they “do not violate Facebook regulations,” is also chilling. Advertisements impersonating public figures like Kim Chong-in, the former head of the People Power Party’s emergency committee, Cambridge University professor Ha-Joon Chang, and comedian Song Eun-yi are spreading like wildfire, while accounts that appear to be using pictures of unsuspecting women for fraudulent purposes are quickly growing in number.

A senior employee at a major advertising agency who spoke on the condition of anonymity remarked, “When promoting brands, if advertisements and content that get exposed side by side have problems, the brand in question’s image is also negatively affected. Facebook ads are not being taken out as much recently [for this reason].” The employee continued, “Only five years ago, Facebook ads were the most effective, but recently, Facebook has often turned out to be the most ineffective when ads were placed on various social media platforms in general.”

Chu Jin-hyung, the former president of Hanwha Investment and Securities whose name and likeness were recently used without permission in deceitful ads on social media, commented, “Watching Facebook make money through advertisements that impersonate public figures, I can’t help but ask whether anyone even trusts advertisements on such an unreliable channel,” adding, “If I ran a company, I would judge that Facebook has a low credibility as an advertising channel.”

When asked about domestic advertising sales trends, Meta Korea shared that it does not make domestic advertising sales figures public. On Oct. 25, Meta Chief Financial Officer Susan Li explained that “the advertising market saw a slowdown since the start of the conflict between Israel and Hamas” in relation to the company’s poor advertising performance.

By Lim Ji-sun, staff reporter

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