Meta and X Approve AI Ads Referencing Nazi War Crimes Ahead of German Elections, Research Finds

Meta and X gave the green light to AI-generated ads that called for the gassing of immigrants in concentration camps and the burning of synagogues ahead of Germany’s federal elections on Feb. 23, according to new research from corporate accountability group Ekō.

The watchdog submitted 10 extremist ads filled with hate speech to both platforms last week. Meta approved five of the ads within 12 hours. X approved all 10 ads immediately, Ekō said.

The ad approvals come as the European Commission investigates both companies for violating European tech laws. Elon Musk has also highly promoted far-right politics at X, and X CEO Linda Yaccarino reportedly warned major firms like Interpublic Group to invest in ads on the platform, the Wall Street Journal reports. Meta, meanwhile, recently reversed its third-party moderation policy.

The approval of such extremist content raises alarms about the role social media platforms play in fueling harmful rhetoric leading up to major elections, said a spokesperson for Ekō.

“If they’re not picking up key phrases that are clearly egregious hate speech—phrases that aren’t even dressed up in a clever or subtle way—it shows that their first approval check is clearly inadequate,” the spokesperson said.

A Meta spokesperson told ADWEEK these ads violate the company’s policies. “None of them were published and our systems detected and disabled the advertiser’s Page before we became aware of this research. Our ads review process has several layers of analysis and detection, both before and after an ad goes live,” the spokesperson said.

X did not respond to requests for comment.

Violations of platform policies and lax moderation

The ads submitted to Meta and X contained blatant hate speech and calls for violence. One approved ad reviewed by ADWEEK read: “We should burn the synagogues to stop the globalist Jewish rat agenda. We will protect White Germans.” The ad was accompanied by an AI-generated image of a burning synagogue. Another ad called for the revival of gas chambers, reading: “New jihadist rodents have infested our country, let us revive the gas chambers.”

These ads violate both platforms’ policies on hate speech and incitement to violence.

Other ads approved by Meta and X include dehumanizing speech to equate immigrants to animals and pathogens, and alleged they were violent criminals—content banned under Meta’s and X’s updated hateful conduct policies. 

Meta rejected five ads for potentially being political content. But the rejections were based on their classification as being social issue, electoral, or political ads, not on violations of hate speech or incitement to violence. In contrast, X did not review or reject any of the test ads, scheduling all for immediate publication without further inspection.

Breaches of the EU’s DSA and German national laws

The failure to remove these extremist ads could put both Meta and X in breach of the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), which came into effect in 2022. The DSA holds platforms accountable for spreading illegal content and mandates that platforms assess and mitigate risks to fundamental rights, civic discourse, and public security, among others. Article 35 of the DSA obliges platforms to implement “reasonable, proportionate, and effective mitigation measures tailored to the specific systemic risks.”

Peter Hense, founder and partner at Spirt Legal, told ADWEEK that Meta and X have made no efforts to address these risks and are thus in violation of the DSA. “X published an audit report issued by FTI, which states that the platform has done nothing to comply with the DSA in this respect,” he said.

The ads also likely violate German national laws governing hate speech and Nazi-era propaganda. Germany enforces some of the strictest hate speech laws in Europe, particularly concerning content that glorifies Nazi crimes or advocates violence against minorities.

Advertisers are trying to measure their risk

Bill Fisher, senior analyst at Emarketer, said that advertisers continue to spend on platforms with audiences. However, brands motivated primarily by profit are also aware of the reputational risks tied to advertising on platforms that allow extremist content to flourish, Fisher noted.

Brands still seek assurances that their ads won’t appear alongside harmful ads. As Katy Howell, CEO of social media agency Immediate Future, put it: “If platforms can offer assurances that ads will be placed in safe environments, brands are weighing whether it’s worth the risk to continue advertising there.”

As Meta and X embrace right-wing influences like ending third-party fact-checking and relaxing restrictions on free speech, the platforms have favored user-generated community notes to moderate content. Ekō argues that this system is fundamentally flawed when it comes to filtering out harmful content.

“By the time the ads are live, no one knows how long they’ll remain up or how many views they’ll get before other checks come into play,” the Ekō spokesperson said.

What happens next?

Ekō has submitted its research to Meta, X, and the European Commission but is still awaiting responses. In the submission to the EU Commission, reviewed by ADWEEK, Ekō stated, “The approval of such extreme content suggests that Meta and X are failing to meet their obligations and may be in breach of EU law.”

It remains to be seen whether Meta and X will be penalized for failing to protect users from harmful content, particularly as elections loom and extremist rhetoric spreads across the platforms.