Hours before news broke Thursday that he had completed his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, Elon Musk wrote an open letter to advertisers stressing that he didn’t want the platform to become a “landscape free hell”.
But that attempt to reassure the advertising industry, which accounts for the vast majority of Twitter’s business, was quickly overshadowed by Musk’s early days as new owner of the platform. Some industry experts are now predicting an exodus of advertisers could come sooner than expected.
In the first 24 hours of owning it, multiple reports noted that racist comments, hate speech and other objectionable content increased dramatically on Twitter as users tested Musk’s promise that he would allow “freedom of expression” on the platform. Then, over the weekend, Musk was widely criticized for tweeting (then deleting without providing a reason) a link to a fringe conspiracy theory about the violent attack on Paul Pelosi, husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. .
“I think advertisers are getting ready to go,” said Claire Atkin, co-founder of adtech watchdog Check My Ads. “This is most likely a seismic change for marketers and advertisers.”
After months of uncertainty over Musk’s impending acquisition, advertisers must now be wondering how Musk will change the platform, which is already also streaming into the digital advertising space despite its outsized political influence. Musk, known as both an innovative entrepreneur and an erratic figure, has vowed to rethink Twitter’s content moderation policies and reverse permanent bans on controversial figures, including former US President Donald Trump.
Brands have long been sensitive to the types of content their ads run on, an issue made more complicated by social media. Most marketers bristle at the thought of their ads being shown alongside toxic content such as hate speech, pornography or misinformation. And if Twitter continues to fight an increase in this content — or if Musk updates Twitter’s policies to explicitly allow some of it — companies can stop advertising there for fear of risk to their brands, or because they reach a smaller audience if they are regular. users also leave.
“If you think about the money and the investment and the care, the real care and attention, it takes to connect with consumers, and then having your ad run next to lies…that’s fine. against everything a brand wants to do,” Atkin said.
Musk, who has already tweeted “I Hate Advertising” and indicated that he wanted to make the platform less dependent on it, also grapples with the fact that around 90% of Twitter’s revenue comes from advertising. In addition to the open letter to advertisers, Musk’s team spent Monday “meeting with the marketing and advertising community” in New York, from Jason Calacanisa member of Musk’s inner circle.
In public and private conversations with advertisers, Twitter also stress that its content policies did not change after the acquisition, and Musk has said they won’t change until a new content moderation board is appointed (apparently to replace the existing trust and safety council).
But Musk could face an uphill battle. Twitter’s digital advertising business is much smaller than those of Meta, Google, and Amazon, and lacks TikTok user growth and demographics. And many brands have already cut their digital ad spend in recent months amid the economic downturn. It might not take much for brands to cut further.
General Motors, which competes with Musk’s Tesla, said on Friday it would suspend payment for Twitter advertising while it evaluates “the new direction of Twitter.” CNN contacted more than a dozen other brands that advertise on Twitter on Monday, most of which did not respond. Toyota, another Tesla competitor, told CNN it was “in discussions with key stakeholders and monitoring the situation” on Twitter. Ben & Jerry’s said that “at this stage we have not considered taking any action.”
On Monday, advertising giant Interpublic Group advised its clients to pause advertising on Twitter for the next week pending further clarity on the platform’s trust and security plans and its ability to deliver on those plans under new owner Elon Musk, a person familiar with the situation told CNN. The advice was sent via an internal memo to IPG employees who work with clients in its Mediabrands advertising buying arm, which includes major consumer brands such as Coca-Cola, Johnson & Johnson, Spotify, Unilever and Moreover.
Also on Monday, the Global Responsible Media Alliance, a major consortium of advertisers and platforms including Twitter, released an open letter to Musk, urging him to ensure Twitter continues to align with industry standards. group, which refer to hate speech, violence, harassment. and the callous treatment of debated social issues as “unsuitable for any publicity medium”. In response to the letter, Musk said in a Tweeter, “Twitter’s commitment to brand safety remains unchanged,” and Twitter chief customer officer Sarah Personette added that the company takes brand safety and its partnership with the organization seriously. . (Personette tweeted on Tuesday that she resigned from the company last week.)
Also on Monday, Angelo Carusone, CEO of media watchdog Media Matters for America, tweeted calling on Twitter’s top advertisers “to put pressure on Twitter right now” to better address the rise in hate and abuse. other toxic contents. On Tuesday, a group of more than 40 civil society organizations, including Media Matters, the NAACP, GLAAD and the Center for Countering Digital Hate, sent an open letter to major Twitter advertisers calling on them to suspend advertising on the platform. form if Musk cut back on content moderation.
“Advertisers are very sensitive to the changing social media landscape,” Atkin said, adding that the question for Twitter now is “whether Elon Musk can continue to negotiate trust with advertisers or will he continue to sow uncertainty and fear”.
In response to a request for comment on this story, a Twitter representative pointed CNN to earlier tweets from Musk and Personette and Musk’s letter to advertisers, as well as a tweet from the head of security and integrity at Twitter’s Yoel Roth, noting that the platform’s policies hadn’t changed, even though it was dealing with an increase in hateful content coming mostly from non-human accounts.
In a separate tweet thread on Monday, Roth said the company has since Saturday been “focused on addressing the surge in hateful behavior on Twitter.” He added, “We’ve made measurable progress, deleting over 1,500 accounts and reducing impressions on this content to almost zero.”
“A reasonable time to rethink things”
An advertising executive told CNN on Monday that dozens of their clients had reached out in recent days for advice on the situation.
“That seems like a reasonable time for advertisers to rethink things,” said David Karpf, an associate professor at George Washington University’s School of Media and Public Affairs. “I think advertisers are going to look at this and say, does Twitter’s low ad revenue become a better or a worse investment? And it’s going to be the same or a little worse…advertisers are definitely not going to start spending more on Twitter soon.”
There is precedent for advertisers walking away from platforms due to hateful content. In 2020, dozens of brands publicly signed the #StopHateForProfit advertiser boycott of Facebook, which denounced the platform for its “repeated failure to meaningfully address the vast proliferation of hate on its platforms.”
But when it comes to Twitter, brands may need to tread carefully to avoid backlash. After GM announced its ad break on Twitter, some users of the platform, including some right-wing political figures, called for a boycott of the automaker.
Because Musk has positioned himself as a “free speech” maximalist and strongly supported by many conservative politicians, brands risk being portrayed as anti-free speech if they leave the platform. But brands also risk appearing to implicitly endorse hate speech and other harmful content if they remain, meaning many may decide to quietly suspend their advertising on the site without an official announcement.
“Advertisers are struggling to publicly weigh in on what is somewhat of an unwinnable position,” the advertising executive told CNN.
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