Illustration: The Verge
Mashable reports that users on X, formerly known as Twitter, have seen unlabeled ads in their feeds while scrolling through the company’s mobile apps. When users tap them, they’re taken to other websites, with no way to block or report them.
Unlike normal ads that are just posts from company X accounts and have an “Ad” label, these new ones have no account associated with them. Here, this post shows what they look like:
This is new. A Twitter ad without an account attached that I can’t block or interact with. Glitch or trial balloon? pic.twitter.com/Nn05vJGkeb
— I Hate My Favourite Teams (@CarcelMousineau) September 30, 2023
If you’re just scrolling, the embedded image and clickbait-style text might make you think it’s just another post. A “profile” picture made from the embedded image completes the illusion.
Here are some examples posted by users:
I’ve been getting them. Super weird pic.twitter.com/w88vUhzre2
— Huey P. Neutron (@TheAlanShane) October 6, 2023
What even is this @X? On my Following feed, we now just have random posts with no username, not a specified ad, no mechanism to report or engage with…
This platform has been broken for a while but it feels utterly in shambles these days. pic.twitter.com/doeUjvXq3x
— Andrew Markowiak (@aMarkzzz) October 2, 2023
This new ad format reminds me of what you see on the bottom of low quality “news” websites
The ads also cannot be blocked or reported
Ad blockers, however, may still work
Have you seen these weird ads here yet? pic.twitter.com/S7vnHPGwhF
— Markets & Mayhem (@Mayhem4Markets) October 6, 2023
Neither I nor my colleagues at The Verge have seen the new ads in our own feeds. Mashable writes that the format isn’t in X’s ad campaign manager, but “it appears these ads are actually being served by a third-party ad provider.”
