Elon Musk’s Twitter is a place with “free speech.” Not to criticize or mock him, mind you, just to say racist, xenophobic, antisemitic, homophobic, and transphobic stuff. A little stochastic terrorism here, a few extremists sent to children’s hospitals there, just a cozy place for fascists. Well, not just fascists, but all the companies still selling ads on Twitter. While many stepped away, reducing Twitter’s ad revenue by up to 50% since Musk became “Chief Twit,” Musk wanted to especially thank Disney and Apple for sticking around.
With hateful content running next to ads, one has to wonder, why didn’t Apple and Disney leave?
Maybe they’re just okay with hate speech being associated with their brand. At least, for Disney, it wouldn’t be the first time.
They Stuck Around
Musk was initially reluctant to buy Twitter. He even tried to back out of the deal several times. However, the agreement seemed too hard to break, and he eventually bought Twitter. He hasn’t hinted at wanting to step away from leading Twitter since. Oh, well, okay, except that one time when the users of the site voted for him to leave… and the second time they did it.
Musk has had a clear vision for Twitter from the beginning: bring back some of the most hateful and violent users, then… okay, he didn’t get much further than that. He believed that, by censoring the kind of hate speech that inspires violent coup attempts or bomb threats at children’s hospitals, Twitter was putting “a huge thumb on the scale in favor of the left.” This, however, is at odds with Twitter’s actual data, showing that it’s more likely to elevate right-wing ideals, even before Musk took over. But, like most conservatives, Musk never let facts get in the way of his feelings. He, bravely, pushed on.
Preserved by this tweet, but who knows if it’ll stay up in modern day Twitter?
Some advertisers were weak. They must have said to themselves, “Wahh, we don’t want to be associated with antisemitism or violence against children,” because they, like cowards, left the platform. Half of all advertising revenue just dropped off Twitter. Musk seems to be frustrated by this. He interacted with accused stochastic terrorist Libs of TikTok all the time! She was only going after trans people, like Elon’s estranged daughter who disassociated herself from him for some reason. Fortunately, heroic companies like Apple and Disney stuck around on Twitter, unfazed by the platform’s tilt to the dangerous far-right. Musk was still worthy of their admiration.
Musk has struggled to help Twitter to pivot to user-based subscriptions. Confusion around Twitter Blue lead to hilarious fake tweets, which, despite claiming “Comedy is now legal,” Musk banned. He banned accounts tracking his private plan flying all around, and people impersonating him. It was a chaotic time, as Musk waffled on every decision, banning and unbanning accounts. Now there are blue and gold checkmarks and, like the blue/gold dress, it’s still a bit confusing.
Now, Twitter has a quarter of its employees left. Sure, this lead to some issues with the FTC and privacy, blocking abusive material of children, a few hiccups with the API that completely broke Twitter and kicked valuable business off the platform forever, a $100,000,000 firing, but Musk assures listeners that he can get Twitter back to profitable, that it would never have been able to pull out of this nose dive without him. Of course, it’s also thanks to help from companies like Disney, Apple, Warner Bros Discovery, and all of these brands now associated with hate. Perhaps Musk’s business instincts were right after all, maybe companies do love an asshole and a toxic world of harassment, bullying, hate speech, and stochastic terror. Musk has bet the company on it, at some point in the near future, that’ll pay off… if you believe Elon.
Sources:
- Ryan Beitler, Paste Magazine
- William Gallagher, AppleInsider
- Jared Gans, The Hill
- Jill Goldsmith, Deadline
- Todd Spangler, Variety
- Christopher Wiggins, Advocate, [2]