X platform's brand safety score for advertisers hurt by error

Social media platform X, formerly Twitter, is looking to set the record straight after its brand safety score on a key platform used by major media advertisers displayed an inaccurate rating for four and a half months.

X's brand safety score on DoubleVerify, one of the leading sources for media holding companies to check the safety and suitability of a given platform for advertising campaigns, was displayed as an erroneously low figure from late October of last year until last month. While DoubleVerify (DV) noted that the underlying data was correct and it was just the display graphic that was incorrect, X says that low figure dissuaded advertisers from spending on the platform.

This comes as advertisers have pulled back their spending on the social media platform following its takeover by an ownership group led by Elon Musk, citing concerns around content moderation policies that could hurt their brand by advertising on the platform.

"The industry has said no platform should be grading their own homework," X head of business operations Joe Benarroch told FOX Business. "Get a third-party verifier. Don't tell us that our brand is safe, let somebody else tell us our brand is safe and the whole marketplace dumped an entire amount of cash into these companies, DoubleVerify being one. We deepened our partnership with DoubleVerify at the request of every single media holding company and at the request of every single big brand marketer."