[threeseed]

Problem there is that Twitter's revenue comes from advertisers.

And corporate advertisers aren't looking to have their brand associated with 4chan 2.0.

So if Musk believes in this unfettered free speech concept then it will destroy Twitter. Because what many people don't know is just how dominant Facebook and Google are in the advertising space. It's > 95% of total ad spend for many brands. So dumping Twitter because it's harming their brand will be a trivial decision.

[TheRealDunkirk]

"Advertisers" advertised on Rush Limbaugh. They keep advertising on Fox News. It'll just draw different advertisers.

Advertisers are going to go where the money is. Will the changing demographics make the platform more money for advertisers, or less? That's all they care about.

Incidentally, if it means there's even a chance that we stop seeing even a small percentage of )(&@(#& Liberty Mutual ads, I'm all for whatever that takes.

[threeseed]

Might want to look more closely into the types of advertisers on Rush Limbaugh etc.

It was bail bonds services, gold, male vitamins, pillows etc.

Not nearly as profitable as say Nike, GM, Sony, Apple etc.

[TheRealDunkirk]

Oh, I get it, but your conjecture was that Twitter wouldn't make enough money from advertising to stay in business. If these kinds of ads make enough money for Rush (in the old days) and Fox to stay at the number 1 spots in their category, then what do they care?

[teawrecks]

In 1991, the Information Council for the Environment was founded by the National Coal Association with the expressed purpose of fabricating uncertainty around climate science.

They provided multiple scripts to Simmons Advertising for Rush Limbaugh to read and pass off as his personal dark horse take on climate policy.

Refer to pages 9 and 12 in the PDF linked below [2].

Would you say the coal industry wasn't a very profitable group? Do you think this is the only group who leveraged Limbaugh's voice to deliberately spread misinformation?

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_Council_for_the_... [2] https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/attach/2015/07/Cl...

[TheRealDunkirk]

Fauci and the CDC have used the networks and elite newspapers to sell the idea that the vaccine prevented transmission of COVID, which has now shown to have been a known lie. How far down this rabbit hole do you want to go? I mean, this kind of media manipulation has been going around since doctors endorsed smoking as good for your health on TV ads. My personal take -- RE: Twitter -- is that this sort of thing needs sunlight and fresh air to sanitize it, not the government or corporations trying to filter it out.

[teawrecks]

The claim was: "the types of advertisers on Rush Limbaugh etc. [were] Not nearly as profitable as say Nike, GM, Sony, Apple etc."

That claim is false and I provided evidence to show it.

As for your whataboutism: that's patently untrue and you know it. Transmission rate and vaccination rate are very clearly inversely related no matter what dataset you're referencing.

But you're correct, misinformation knows no bounds, be it right wing radio or the comments section of a tech forum. The best we can do is vet sources sufficiently, or otherwise learn to disregard unfounded claims as random noise.

[brnaftr361]

Or normalizing "4chan 2.0" reels people in.

You may not recall, but 4chan was one of the greatest disseminators of information and a huge spawning ground for all kinds of content prior to the emergence of more mainstream platforms. It was also fucking disgusting.

[MichaelZuo]

How is that a problem?

It's his money to lose if advertisers all bail.

[threeseed]

And Musk likes his money as well as Tesla, SpaceX etc.

So when it comes to the choice between that and allowing unfettered free speech I am quite sure he is going to choose the former.

[MichaelZuo]

So either way it's not a problem for the vast majority of users.

[lost_tourist]

I think so too. He will have to rehire all those content moderators that he is currently firing to keep the ad base alive. He will have to have people monitor and delete Trump and Kanye tweets when they come back online as well as probably 90% of whatever Alex Jones posts but I think he will stop short of closing their accounts; maybe he will have to block them for EU countries I would guess, because that's the law. I don't know how EU could force anything beyond that.