Elon Musk's X: Ad watchdog files FTC complaint against it for not clearly disclosing ads

Elon Musk’s new ad policies for X may cost the company after an online advertising watchdog officially filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).Check My Ads, an independent organization that monitors adtech companies, announced on Wednesday that it submitted a formal complaint with the FTC, “urging” for an investigation into X and its ad practices.Why is X getting slapped with an FTC complaint?The heart of the complaint involves recent changes to the platform, formerly known as Twitter, which obscures whether a post that a user is viewing is an advertisement. Oftentimes, X doesn’t even let users know they are viewing an advertisement at all. Check My Ads cites Mashable’s reporting regarding lack of ad disclosure in its complaint to the FTC.Musk’s platform previously labeled advertisements clearly with a “Promoted” tag affixed to the bottom of a paid ad. However, as Mashable reported in July, many users started noticing that the “Promoted” label stopped appearing on paid posts. A new “ad” label, placed on the upper-right corners of posts, replaced it — and it was much less noticeable than the previous “Promoted” disclosure. A screenshot of an ad on X without a label, only showing a disclosure in a drop down menu. Credit: Mashable Some ads had no disclosures at allHowever, even worse than the new, less conspicuous ad disclosure were the ads without any label at all. In September, Mashable noticed some ads that weren’t labeled with “Promoted” nor “Ad.” The only way users could determine it was…Elon Musk's X: Ad watchdog files FTC complaint against it for not clearly disclosing ads