3 ms·

Why wouldn't Musk welcome the revenue from advertisers that would be happy to be placed with Nazis?

by quantified 3y ago

CaptainZapp 3y ago
Which advertisers would those be?
- quantified 3y ago
  I don't know myself, it's not my demographic. Wild guesses: firearms or munitions, hunting/camping supplies, vitamins, political ads. Since they own businesses themselves and work in their communities, it could easily be someone. I see this was an unpopular idea to someone. Yet politicians compete for their votes. And as a businessman, it seems manifestly clear that Musk would take all the money he could for any content on Twixter.
- rsynnott 3y ago
  There is a weird cottage industry, particularly in the US, of products for the far right. Like, generally just normal products, things like coffee and so on, but with marketing designed to appeal to the far right. Also for whatever reason there's a _vast_ industry around selling bullshit supplements to the far-right; a lot of far-right media figures are in on this grift. It's probably not enough to sustain Twitter, though, and even some of these might balk at some of the content highlighted by Media Matters, which was, y'know, _very Hitler-heavy_.
I_Am_Nous 3y ago
The current issue with that strategy is being able to ensure advertisers who don't want ANY association with Nazis that their ads will not be shown to Nazis. Even instances like this, where someone IBM did want to advertise to went and looked at a Nazi tweet which caused the IBM ad to appear next to Nazi content, can be considered damaging to a brand in the wildfire that is the internet. If this becomes the norm, where companies are so scared to get a black eye on the internet, it could lead to companies making decisions about keeping Nazi users at all. If everyone who views a Nazi tweet can't be advertised to then that tweet will be very expensive to serve.

3 ms·

Why wouldn't Musk welcome the revenue from advertisers that would be happy to be placed with Nazis?

by quantified 3y ago

Why wouldn't Musk welcome the revenue from advertisers that would be happy to be placed with Nazis?

CaptainZapp 3y ago
Which advertisers would those be?
- quantified 3y ago
  I don't know myself, it's not my demographic. Wild guesses: firearms or munitions, hunting/camping supplies, vitamins, political ads. Since they own businesses themselves and work in their communities, it could easily be someone. I see this was an unpopular idea to someone. Yet politicians compete for their votes. And as a businessman, it seems manifestly clear that Musk would take all the money he could for any content on Twixter.
- rsynnott 3y ago
  There is a weird cottage industry, particularly in the US, of products for the far right. Like, generally just normal products, things like coffee and so on, but with marketing designed to appeal to the far right. Also for whatever reason there's a _vast_ industry around selling bullshit supplements to the far-right; a lot of far-right media figures are in on this grift. It's probably not enough to sustain Twitter, though, and even some of these might balk at some of the content highlighted by Media Matters, which was, y'know, _very Hitler-heavy_.
I_Am_Nous 3y ago
The current issue with that strategy is being able to ensure advertisers who don't want ANY association with Nazis that their ads will not be shown to Nazis. Even instances like this, where someone IBM did want to advertise to went and looked at a Nazi tweet which caused the IBM ad to appear next to Nazi content, can be considered damaging to a brand in the wildfire that is the internet. If this becomes the norm, where companies are so scared to get a black eye on the internet, it could lead to companies making decisions about keeping Nazi users at all. If everyone who views a Nazi tweet can't be advertised to then that tweet will be very expensive to serve.