Elon Musk disclosed on Friday that Twitter revenue had drastically decreased as a result of advertisers leaving the organization. He attributed this to unknown “activists” who are “trying to kill free speech in America.”
Musk tweeted out on Friday that Twitter had experienced a “huge loss in revenue” as a result of activist groups pressing advertisers, “despite the fact that nothing has changed with regard to content moderation and we done everything we could to please the activists.” Really screwed up! They’re attempting to end free expression in the United States.
The truth is that, other from a big layoff, it’s unclear what his true plan for the website is, and as a result, advertisers are running away. Nevertheless, what we have seen so far is chaotic and scary. For instance, Musk wrote and later removed an item that erroneously claimed Paul Pelosi was attacked by a male sex worker rather than a right-wing conspiracy theorist hunting for his wife, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, soon after acquiring the website.
According to a Reuters article, at least one significant ad buyer intended to meet with Musk to discuss the incident. Internal documents provided to Reuters already revealed that advertisers were wary of the website due to the expansion of gambling and cryptocurrency content as well as a “absolute decrease” in active users.
It also sounds false when Musk asserts that “nothing has changed with content moderation.” Since Musk bought Twitter, the firm has been losing executives and advertisers due to worries about what Musk might do with the company. In fact, he fired Twitter’s head of trust and safety policies as one of his very first actions. On Friday, Musk also let go of almost 50% of Twitter’s staff, including the group in charge of algorithmic ethics and transparency.
Soon after assuming leadership, Musk set up meetings with sponsors. At around the same time, he tweeted the company’s sponsors, pledging the site wouldn’t devolve into a “free-for-all hellscape.”
“Because it would be simple, I chose not to do it. I didn’t do it to increase my earnings. I tried to serve humanity because I love them,” Musk wrote on Twitter after calling off his legal fight to get out of the deal to buy Twitter. “I do so in humility, aware that, despite our best efforts, there is a very real chance that we will fall short of achieving this goal.”
Musk, though, is not someone who lets the truth stand in the way of what he wants to say. Before we learned of the recent decline in revenue, his idea to charge for verification and emphasize the potential to artificially boost your presence on the site by paying already reeked of desperation. It is only to be expected at this juncture that he would resort to the well-worn argument that he was the victim of a woke mob.
