What’s Next for Twitter and Brands?
How safe is Twitter for brands?
With Elon Musk’s takeover of the app complete, this question is rising more frequently, and it’s crucial to the future of Twitter.
Twitter consists of roughly 400 million users. Businesses advertising to those users' accounts generate roughly 85 percent of Twitter’s revenue. The takeover of the company by the polarizing business leader has concerned advertisers who fear that the app will devolve into the very “free-for-all hellscape” that Musk recently assured advertisers it will not become. Here are some reasons why:
- The Network Contagion Research Institute found that use of the n-word spiked almost 500 percent after Musk’s deal was finalized. “Evidence suggests that bad actors are trying to test the limits on Twitter,” the organization tweeted. Twitter confirmed that a spike in the use of racial speech has increased, but Twitter attributed what’s happening to “a small number of accounts” that have posted “a ton of Tweets that include slurs and other derogatory terms.”
- The Washington Post recently reported that Musk could lay off as much as 75 percent of Twitter’s work force. This news has sparked concerns that the loss of institutional knowledge could undermine Twitter’s ability to moderate harmful content.
- Musk himself has historically taken a laissez-faire attitude toward content moderation on Twitter, instead supporting more of an open platform, which again has raised concerns that hate speech could proliferate on Twitter (more than it does already).
- On top of all this, Musk is prone to making controversial statements and actions such as promoting misinformation about Covid-19. As CEO, he has continued his controversial ways. On October 30, Musk, one of Twitter’s most followed users, tweeted a baseless conspiracy theory about the violent attack on Ron Pelosi, husband of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. His tweet, sourcing a widely discredited website, fanned the flames of concern. As Jacob Carpenter of Fortune wrote, “By spreading an evidence-free conspiracy theory about Pelosi’s husband, Musk engaged in precisely the kind of behavior that will make advertisers question his judgment. He fed into the far-right maelstrom alleging a vast cover-up, which led to the hashtag “#Pelosigaylover” trending across the site Monday morning.”
For his part, Musk announced on October 28 that that Twitter will form a content moderation committee. “Twitter will be forming a content moderation council with widely diverse viewpoints,” he tweeted. “No major content decisions or account reinstatements will happen before that council convenes.”
So far, one company, General Motors, has temporarily suspended advertising on Twitter (and did so once the acquisition closed). GM cited no particular motivation, just that “We are engaging with Twitter to understand the direction of the platform under their new ownership. As is normal course of business with a significant change in a media platform, we have temporarily paused our paid advertising.” (It should be noted that GM is a rival of Musk-owned Tesla.)
What will businesses – both advertisers and no-advertisers alike – do? Likely a lot of the answer comes down to whether Twitter can moderate content and how well Musk manages his own actions.
Businesses have traditionally tolerated quite a bit of controversial content on social media so long as their ads do not appear alongside it – which underlines the importance of content moderation.
But if indeed Musk fails to manage Twitter, users could flee the site, leaving advertisers with a shrinking audience to go along with the ever-present threat of harmful content embarrassing their brands (which continues to happen on social media platforms).
What will brands do next? Wait and see is the likely answer. For how long?
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