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Big brands keep dropping X over antisemitism; $75M loss, report estimates
- klipklop 3y agoImagine when the big brands find out what is going on with Instagram. That place is WILD now if you doomscroll.
- COGlory 3y agoThis whole thing is so incredibly overblown. Advertisers can flee (although the article only says X is on pace to lose about 75 million) but unless the users do, it's meaningless and they'll come back. Media Matters is a professional political psychological manipulation outfit. Musk's tweets were dumb and offensive, but Media Matters is milking this for every penny it's worth and trying to make it seem much larger than it is. (as they are incentivized to do).
- mindslight 3y agoReactionary talk radio has tons of listeners, but few if any mainstream advertisers. It's all pointers to other demagogues, dubious legal services, prepper supplies, and overpriced gimmicks where the value add is the political identity marketing itself. I don't see why Twitter would end up any different.
- rsynnott 3y agoLosing 75 million _through the end of the year_, over something which happened in mid November, is non-trivial. Like, this is not the total bill for Musk spouting his mouth off forever and ever.
- lettergram 3y agoI doubt it's even $10m losses. To your point -- presumably, if it's cheap enough people will start advertising who can't normally afford it.
- crowcroft 3y agoI would point out that advertising $$$s is basically zero sum. I agree with the premise that if $75m is removed from the supply prices will go down and then new $$$s will come into the platform, so it's not a 1:1 drop in revenue, but you probably aren't going to see $75m of new money enter the market. Of course Tesla or SpaceX could decide they want to start running ads?
- dylan604 3y agoI guess one has to buy into the concept that targeted advertising works to actually think that someone's ad appearing next to questionable content was there because the company sought out that content to appear next to. Of course, reality shows that targeted advertising doesn't work like that, and it's pretty much a random "who has the ad budget remaining to fund an ad display for this page load" which means it'll always be a major company with deep pockets for advertising
- erehweb 3y agoCounter: Pornhub has lots of users, but no big brands. Is X at that state? No, but the point is that brand safety is important, advertisers pay attention to it, and it impacts the publishers bottom line.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- matt010 3y ago[flagged]
- jasonlotito 3y ago[flagged]
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- slowhadoken 3y ago[flagged]
- jasonlotito 3y agoWhat's weird about not wanting to support someone using money that helps promote something you are against? I've got to admit, I think it's weird that you'd be willing to support things you disagree with. Edit: Further, my comment was commenting on the reference to brand safety. It's a personal anecdote, but it's perfectly fine in conversation. So, what was weird about an on-topic comment about not wanting to support a message I disagree with nor do business with those who are fine with supporting that message?
- slowhadoken 3y agoMy gripes about moral purchasing aside. It’s one thing to disagree with someone or not purchase their products. It’s another thing to call someone a hate monger for vague reasons. And I support free speech and discussion because I’m an American. I don’t know where you’re from but that’s how America works.
- swatcoder 3y agoLeaving gives advertisers an opportunity to measure the ROI of their ad spend to a degree they can't usually acheive. Rolling out a campaign is usually speculative and many were initiated when Twitter was exponentially growing, making quantitative assessment hard. Twitter (and the market) is no longer in that state. Whether they return probably has more to do with what they discover in this de facto A:B test than whether users stay or leave. And if they don't return, ad pricing will plummet and draw in more cheap and scam/fringe-market ads, changing the feel of the site for users. Musk is suing Media Matters not just because of his personal ego or sense of principle, but because the advertiser bleed it triggered could become a really bad thing for his darling.
- fred_is_fred 3y agoYou are mixing up two events. MM reported on ads next to neo-nazi content AND Musk tweeted something anti-semitic. MM didn't make Musk do that nor was it even called out in their post because it happened before he said it.
- nineplay 3y agoDoubtless each of these companies have number-crunchers in back rooms trying to estimate the costs of tarnishing their brand if they continue to advertise on X. These sort of allegations can stick - Disney won't want to be remembered as the company that supported anti-Semitism. If X's reputation continues to go down, so will its advertisers. Plus not all users are alike. I've never been in a backroom, but I'm guessing that they are more concerned with the users with more spending capital.
- adrr 3y agoThey cancelled "All-American Muslim" because they couldn't get advertisers even though it was averaging 1 million viewers per show which would made it one of the most popular show on TLC. https://ustvdb.com/networks/tlc/shows/ https://ustvdb.com/networks/tlc/shows/
- COGlory 3y agoI imagine TV advertisements are an entirely different beast. I'd suppose it's much more difficult to fill TV airtime because the barrier to creating a good TV advertisement is so high. And the expected revenue was probably pre-priced in, and also there's very limited airtime so why run something that isn't performing as well as something else could? Whereas, Twitter is infinite, and theoretical advertising is unlimited. Additionally, the barrier to a Twitter ad is much less. Just speculating, though.
- afuchs 3y ago> They cancelled "All-American Muslim" because they couldn't get advertisers even though it was averaging 1 million viewers per show which would made it one of the most popular show on TLC. To add context, this was after a few large companies canceled their ads for that show after push back from a very small number of evangelical christians: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All-American_Muslim#Sponsorship_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All-American_Muslim#Sponsorshi... https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-attack-on-all-american-muslim https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-attack-on-a...
- drewg123 3y agoHow are the twitter alternatives doing? The last I checked maybe 6 months ago, it seemed like: - mastadon was too complex for normal people - threads was scary, due to meta, and tried to bury discussions about anything controversial - bluesky was unable to handle the load, and was trickling invite codes out very slowly. Has anything changed?
- rsynnott 3y agoBluesky’s trickle of invites has become a flood; I gave out 10 over the last two days, and now that I check, it has just given me another one. I’ve got to imagine they’re not too far from just opening the floodgates. I don’t entirely buy the “mastodon is too complex for normal people” thing; I follow lots of normal people on Mastodon. It is not all nerds.
- kasey_junk 3y agoBigger question is are there less users total in aggregate. The entire premise might be toast.
- Dig1t 3y agoX posted recently that usage is at an all time high.
- rsynnott 3y agoUsing a very specific, ill-defined metric that no-one has ever heard of before, so, y’know…
- joeconway 3y agoand why should we believe their claims?
- Dig1t 3y agoI don’t know or care enough to question it. I am assuming them making false claims like that would open them up to some kind of lawsuits WRT advertisers or something?
- DustinBrett 3y agoI see almost 0 hate or negative messages on X. I must be doing something wrong/right or following different groups. I'd like to understand why some people aren't seeing it and if groups/regions are being targeted with different content.
- slowhadoken 3y agoI ask people “what’s so deplorable about Musk?” and their complaints are always vague. He’s not in lockstep with MSNBC so he’s a nazi or something? idk makes no sense to me.
- happytoexplain 3y agoThere's nothing vague about it. E.g. just to use the obvious example these stories are about: He lauded, without adding qualifications, a comment that arguably was over-broad and promoted hatred based on race/religion. Again, arguably; but also obviously - as in, that interpretation is an obvious potential one, even if you don't agree with it. And yet, knowing that, he still chose his action. He could have expressed a more reasonable opinion in any of various different ways, or in response to any of the various more reasonable criticisms of e.g. the ADL - but he explicitly chose not to. So, you may agree or disagree with the position I'm describing as "arguable", but the position is not "vague", and it of course implies none of the hyperbole you've resorted to in painting your opponents.
- slowhadoken 3y ago[flagged]
- nineplay 3y agoAre you familiar with the recent activities of the owner, chairman, and CTO of X? People may object to X without having any concerns about the content of X.
- slowhadoken 3y ago
- slowhadoken 3y agoAntisemitism? This sort of talk is exhausting. Can we stop playing this petty and vindictive game already? That’s what’s bad for business.
- u320 3y ago[flagged]
- slowhadoken 3y agoMy grandma is Jewish, I have Jewish friends. What’s convenient about antisemitism? Are you Jewish? What has Musk done or said that’s hateful towards Jewish people?
- u320 3y agoSome guy posted a common neo-nazi conspiracy theory about Jews. Elon replied in approval. Apparently you did now know this, yet you come here and post that we should not talk about it.
- slowhadoken 3y ago[flagged]
- jrflowers 3y agoI think maybe you misread the statement. You asked people to stop bringing up antisemitism because you are exhausted, and I’m assuming that they meant to point out that changing topics simply to help you avoid exhaustion would be doing so for your personal convenience (not the “convenience” of antisemitism as a concept, whatever that means). There is not a valid interpretation of that post as “antisemitism is convenient” if you accurately read the words in order.
- slowhadoken 3y ago
- barnabee 3y agoThis all seems so backwards to me. I had cut my use of Twitter by probably >90% and uninstalled the app after they killed 3rd party clients, in a large part because that meant I was now seeing any ads at all. I started paying for Premium+ and reinstalled the app once I realised it meant no ads, and am a regular user again now. I’d still rather be using Tweetbot but the “following” tab and ad-free is more than fine enough. So really the ideal number of brands advertising on X is zero. I don’t care what big brands are doing, as long as they don’t do it anywhere near me. If that means charging for a premium experience, or for businesses wanting to embed Tweets or analyse data, or whatever, instead of targeting innocent victims with advertising, great! My complaint about X/Twitter remains that someone/some company/some government can still control who can post and what they can post. That control needs to be designed out entirely and replaced with safety tools that reduce the reach of objectionable content and allow people to collaborate over more restrictive blocklists to suit their sensibilities, without creating any point of control.
- flir 3y agoGiven how niche Twitter would become if it was entirely subscription-based, I too am ok with this.
- nektro 3y agohow has the infrastructure not keeled over and died? let alone anyone still wanting to use it