[shrimp_emoji]

As opposed to letting advertisers be our mental jailors by chilling the discourse as they pressure the hubs where communication takes place to collapse down to the lowest common denominator of anodyne politically correct corporate approved goodthink like they have over the last 10 years. Cry me a river. I'm morally outraged all the way back into my cage, Mr. PepsiCo!

[gigatexal]

Elon tells advertisers to go fuck themsleves, turns Twitter into a cesspool and a hollow shell of its former self and then sues when they decide as companies to not advertise on his now toxic platform? Seems logical to me on the part of the advertisers.

If this doesn’t track for you did causality break in the universe?

[peutetre]

Most of Twitter's revenue comes from advertising. If you run a business that's dependent on ad sales then guess what: you're dependent on advertisers. They are your customers. That's where the money comes from.

If your customer doesn't like what you're selling then they're not going to buy it. And when you then tell your customers to go fuck themselves your business is unlikely to thrive.

If Musk doesn't like the fact that Twitter is no longer a compelling product for his customers then he either needs to fix the product so it's something his customers want or change the business model to no longer be advertising based or get out of the social media business altogether.

[techostritch]

According to Musk, Twitter is busier than ever and about to start being a financial company. Why do they need advertisers in the first place?

Rather than sue a bunch of advertisers why doesn’t Elon, who is clearly a once in a generation business genius, execute on his plan and show the world why we don’t need advertisers?

[gigatexal]

According to me I'm 100ft tall and owed all your wealth... why are we taking Ketamine man at his word?

[nobody9999]

I'd add that even though Advertising (well, more specifically, Advertising Market Research) put a roof over my head, clothes on my back and food in my belly for the first 18 years of my life, then for another five years in my early 20s, I despise advertisers, advertising and all that goes with it.

I take great pains to avoid viewing/hearing ads anywhere and wish that scum would just go away.

I'm not "rooting for the ad industry"[0]. In fact, I wish it was abolished or at least heavily regulated.

That said, forcing folks to endorse speech they don't wish to endorse, and/or forcing folks to pay to endorse such speech (showing an ad next to a tweet serves as a de facto endorsement of that tweet) is wrong.

And as much as I hate advertisers, I love freedom of expression and freedom of (or, in this case, from) association for everyone, including those triple-damned advertisers.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41175240

[matrix87]

> That said, forcing folks to endorse speech they don't wish to endorse... is wrong

Ehh, suppose advertisers didn't want to have ads appear next to tweets by users of specific ethinicities or religious affiliations? Do you think they should have a choice there, or should they not be given one?

I mean, maybe at social platform level granularity it's just economic freedom of association. But you made a generic argument (or at least that's how it reads)

[nobody9999]

I think folks should follow the law. I'll let you extrapolate WRT "protected classes"[0] and the like, although (since IANAL) I'm not sure how such would apply in the case of placing ads. Especially since one can place ads to be shown only to 18-34 year-old [men|women|non-binary] with a specified educational attainment, a specified floor for income, specified marital status, parentage status in a specific zip code.

All that said, we're talking about a specific platform here (X) and you're moving the goal posts, which just smacks of bad faith. This is your last feeding from me. Now get back under your bridge!

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_group

[nobody9999]

>As opposed to letting advertisers be our mental jailors by chilling the discourse

Chilling what discourse? To which specific discourse and topics are you referring?

I'm not being snarky here, I don't use Twitter/X/whatever or other "Social Media" sites like FB/IG. Nor do I use any federated ActivityPub[0] sites.

As such, I'm really not sure what speech you believe is being "suppressed" by advertisers.

What's more IIUC, Musk/X are claiming that advertisers should be required to advertise (and pay for those advertisements) on Twitter/X. Unless I'm missing something important, that makes absolutely no sense.

It would be like McDonald's suing you because you don't buy their food, or Tesla suing you because you bought a Chevy instead of a Tesla.

And so, assuming I'm not missing anything important (am I?), the whole premise is risible[1]. No one owes Musk/X/Twitter any advertising revenue, and forcing folks to pay to run ads where they don't want to run such ads is ridiculous -- or is it your contention that advertisers (or anyone else, for that matter -- since if they can be forced to do this, so can you or me) must pay Elon Musk?

I'd be very interested to hear how such a position is compatible with capitalism and a free society. Do tell.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ActivityPub

[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/risible

Edit: Added the missing links. Added reference '[1]' to one link.

[gigatexal]

> What's more IIUC, Musk/X are claiming that advertisers should be required to advertise (and pay for those advertisements) on Twitter/X. Unless I'm missing something important, that makes absolutely no sense.

Agreed. It doesn’t. Companies are free to spend their ad dollars how they choose to. It’s a free country last I checked.