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To play the devil's advocate: So why haven't advertisers abandoned Fox News? As long as Musk limits his newly acquired toy to being no worse than Fox News (whi

To play the devil's advocate: So why haven't advertisers abandoned Fox News? As long as Musk limits his newly acquired toy to being no worse than Fox News (which is plenty bad!), he can still keep advertising dollars coming in.

zach_garwood 4y ago
There are some outrageous takes on Fox News sometimes, and advertisers do abandon certain talking heads from time to time. But Fox isn't non-stop firehose of bile. Twitter is by default, even with it's current moderation. It's already worse than Fox News.
uni_rule 4y ago
Because Fox News is stable, banal, they play the respectability card. Internet users on the other hand can be fucking volatile. Advertisers don't care how hot the takes are on cable news, they just want to sell shit to the elderly, they do care if their ads are placed around overt fascists because that's where their association attracts bad press. Same thing that happened to Youtube in 2017. People gave a bunch of large brands bad mainstream press because their ads played on fringe/conspiratorial/violent content and they, responding to the bad press they receivdd specifically, gave Youtube a heavy ultimatum about keeping ads off that sort of content before they abandon the platform. The rest is history.
mikkergp 4y ago
So yeah actually, I was thinking about this but advertisers have abandoned Fox News in droves. They have a relatively narrow advertising block it's mostly middle of the road car and insurance companies and other big brands with big money who don't mind focusing on that particular segment. (Don't get me wrong it is a lot of companies, but I don't think twitter has the grab to be this picky yet) I suspect part of the problem with Twitter is that then you probably are ending up trying to build a conservative social network, and I suspect there isn't a big enough market for a conservative social network, at least as big as the one that Twitter wants to be. Maybe as time goes on and more conservatives end up younger.

zach_garwood 4y ago

There are some outrageous takes on Fox News sometimes, and advertisers do abandon certain talking heads from time to time. But Fox isn't non-stop firehose of bile. Twitter is by default, even with it's current moderation. It's already worse than Fox News.

uni_rule 4y ago

Because Fox News is stable, banal, they play the respectability card. Internet users on the other hand can be fucking volatile. Advertisers don't care how hot the takes are on cable news, they just want to sell shit to the elderly, they do care if their ads are placed around overt fascists because that's where their association attracts bad press. Same thing that happened to Youtube in 2017. People gave a bunch of large brands bad mainstream press because their ads played on fringe/conspiratorial/violent content and they, responding to the bad press they receivdd specifically, gave Youtube a heavy ultimatum about keeping ads off that sort of content before they abandon the platform. The rest is history.

mikkergp 4y ago

So yeah actually, I was thinking about this but advertisers have abandoned Fox News in droves. They have a relatively narrow advertising block it's mostly middle of the road car and insurance companies and other big brands with big money who don't mind focusing on that particular segment. (Don't get me wrong it is a lot of companies, but I don't think twitter has the grab to be this picky yet) I suspect part of the problem with Twitter is that then you probably are ending up trying to build a conservative social network, and I suspect there isn't a big enough market for a conservative social network, at least as big as the one that Twitter wants to be. Maybe as time goes on and more conservatives end up younger.