X’s new ad format is just like the fake article clickbait ads you see at the bottom of websites.
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:
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:
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.”
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