X's Yacarinno tells advertisers, we'll sue if you don't advertise!
X’s (Twitter) CEO Linda Yacarinno released a video statement on Tuesday announcing that the company was taking legal action against the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), and some of its members, including Mars, Unilever and US pharmacy chain CVS Health.
In the very odd video posted on X, Yacarinno accused organisations of a “systematic illegal boycott of the platform.” As CEO, she’s accused them of colluding in not advertising on X, the impact of which has been the significant drop in revenue for the company that Elon Musk bought for $44bn in late 2022.
Since the purchase by Musk, Twitter has moved from being a company that invested in safety and content moderation to one that shares the values and the free-speech absolutist view that Elon won’t compromise on.
The problem that Elon has is that in reshaping the company into a reflection of himself, enterprise advertisers have opted to move away from spending money on his platform because of the increased reputational risk that X presents, something that both Yacarinno and Musk choose to ignore.
Companies and brands just do not want to spend their money on a platform where hateful content is becoming so prominent.
Musk, of course, famously reacted to companies that were moving away from the platform last year by telling them to, I quote, “go fuck yourself.” He added that if X was to fail it was because of companies that did not want to advertise. He did not acknowledge any responsibility for how his decisions have made the platform into a channel that brands do not want to associate themselves on, maybe highlighting that for Elon, it is not about the profits but the influence that he wishes to leverage worldwide.
Yacarinno arrived at Twitter in June 2023, just before Elon’s comments to advertisers, with a positive reputation with advertisers, a community that Musk had struggled to attract to the platform since he took over the channel and sacked thousands of employees in a bloody cost-cutting exercise.
The cost-cutting, especially of the Global Content Moderation team, led to an increase in hate speech. Musk himself, as the owner, kept amplifying conspiracy theorists.
For all her work as CEO, Yacarinno has failed to understand that to drive growth and increase revenue, especially from advertisers, the product needs to be an environment where advertisers feel they can have a presence with limited reputational risk to their brand. She and Elon refuse to compromise on the basic notion that you design, build, and iterate a product that people want to spend money on, including advertisers.
Her failure to not understand and, we assume, also convince Elon of this basic principle is what is driving X to the ground.
Of course, X, or Twitter, could become a true global town square that delivers and generates revenue. Sadly, though, the only reason it isn’t is the uncompromising nature of its leadership, which begs the question: If not for money and delivering a service for people and advertisers, why did Elon buy the channel?
At the moment, given how Musk and others are using X, it looks like it is us, through his use of X, that are his plaything!
