| That is a "black swan" argument from Musk, et al. Media Matters set up a test account that showed that it was possible for X's algorithm to pair ads with objectionable content. Given that, how can X claim that "no company has its ads run next to anti semitic content in general" when Media Matters has shown that it is possible? Unless Media Matters "photoshopped" or otherwise manufactured the results--but that isn't what the filing claims. They claim that MM set up a few small accounts following only a few other accounts-fringe content and brand advertisers--and then scrolled through the feed until they found something bad. The line in the filing that mentions that MM's tests used existing accounts to get by new member restrictions shows the fragile nature of X's arguments. Most real-life users are going to have existing accounts, so it's that experience you want to check, not the highly-constrained environment X puts new subscribers into because they don't trust them yet. Customers like Apple, Comcast, NBCUniversal and IBM, are sophisticated ad buyers that wouldn't let a single story change their buying strategies without additional information/confirmation from X. If they made the choice to leave X, I'd bet that the Media Matters story was the last straw, not the first one. And it's quite possible that the Media Matters story was the result--rather that the cause--of those companies' decision to leave the platform in the first place. While X is trying to spin this a Media Matters "did bad things" to convince Apple, IBM, Comcast, and NBCUniversal to stop advertising with X, it is far more likely that the highly volatile and bombastic behavior of X over the last year had far more to do with that result than Media Matters' article did. |