Mashable reports that users of X, formerly known as Twitter, have seen unlabeled ads in their feeds while browsing the company’s mobile applications. When users tap them, they are redirected to other websites, with no way to block or report them.
Unlike regular ads that are just posts from Company X accounts and have an “Ad” tag, these new ones don’t have any accounts associated with them. Here, this post. shows what they look like:
If you’re just scrolling, the embedded image and clickbait-style text may make you think it’s just another post. A “profile” image made from the embedded image completes the illusion.
Below are some examples posted by users:
Neither I nor my colleagues The edge We’ve seen the new ads in our own feeds. Mashable writes that the format is not in X’s Ad Campaign Manager, but “it appears that these ads are actually served by a third-party advertising provider.”