When someone at Kalshi woke up on Christmas morning, they discovered that they would have to spend a portion of the day deleting the company’s badges from at least three X/Twitter affiliate accounts that had posted antisemitic content.
The argument behind one of the posts was that the NBA was unjust to the Thunder by scheduling them to face the Spurs three times in a 12-day period (the Spurs won all three games), with NBA commissioner Adam Silver’s head pasted onto Adolf Hitler’s body. After “The Closing Line,” Substack author Dustin Gouker initially reported the antisemitic posts on all three accounts, their Kalshi affiliate badges were promptly deleted.
Gouker pointed out a fourth post on Friday morning, and Kalshi promptly took down the affiliate badge associated with that account.
Elisabeth Diana, a representative for Kalshi, told Front Office Sports on Friday that “badges are like bumper stickers or team logos—accounts show brand affinity, but they’re not acting on our behalf.” “We immediately removed these badges for violating our policies, which forbid any content that encourages hate speech.”
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In December 2022, months after Elon Musk acquired the firm and completely overhauled its verification procedures, Twitter introduced the badge program. The platforms use the affiliate badge program as a technique to encourage users to start utilizing their prediction markets, such as CEO interviews on traditional TV news shows or shitposting.
Giving out affiliate badges is “more akin to handing out hats with your logo on it” than designating those accounts as “official representatives” of the platform, Kalshi previously told FOS. However, the company, which just raised $1 billion at a valuation of $11 billion, and its main rival in prediction markets, Polymarket, have come under fire for posts made by affiliate-badged accounts.
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Polymarket, which received up to $2 billion from the New York Stock Exchange operator in October and is reportedly in negotiations to raise further capital at a $15 billion value, has also seen some controversy on social media. Emma Vance claims to be a “lead Polymarket reporter,” has a Polymarket Sports affiliate badge, and has had several fictitious sports news posts go viral, such as one that claimed Giannis Antetokounmpo had asked for a trade and another that claimed the Steelers were “exploring trade options” for head coach Mike Tomlin.
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