from Hacker News

Musk said Twitter has seen a ‘massive drop in revenue’ as more brands pause ads

by underscore_ku on 11/4/22, 4:51 PM with 2 comments

• by quantified on 11/4/22, 5:40 PM

  > “Twitter has had a massive drop in revenue, due to activist groups pressuring advertisers, even though nothing has changed with content moderation and we did everything we could to appease the activists,” he said in a tweet. “Extremely messed up! They’re trying to destroy free speech in America.”

  On average, if their advertising brings in profit they'll continue it. So this might be temporary.

  If it is socially driven, two things come to mind: 1: They may just not like being associated with Musk. Now that Twitter is Musk, they're tied to him. 2: We're moving to an economy that is more obviously based on social group approvals/behaviors. Shunning and ostracising by some groups ("libs"/"SJWs", apparently) and support by other groups (MAGA, Qs) for one company or another feels a bit different than preferences by social classes or geographies.

  Maybe this has been played out in past generations, for example how the temperance or abolition movements went. But those were about classes of behavior, not specific companies. Maybe the fact that we only have 1 Twitter in mind, not 10 different short message services, clouds my thinking there.

• by jfengel on 11/4/22, 7:06 PM

  Huh. Usually, the ones with the delusion that somebody can "destroy free speech" are those demanding that somebody else pay to carry their speech.

  Now, we've got the carrier demanding that they pay him to carry some speech.

  The shoe is on the other hand, or something.