Exclusive: Apple to pause advertising on X after Musk backs antisemitic post
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https://www.axios.com/2023/11/17/apple-twitter-x-advertising-elon-musk-antisemitism-ads
Stop X permanently. The lawsuits are massing up, and the value of the business has nearly dropped such that the $13bn debt is bigger than it. They had little hope of paying even the interest before Musk started intentionally tanking their revenue. He knows that the business will never have to pay up, hell they're not even paying rent on their offices, and he'll get away with the crime Scott free because it's a limited liability company.
And make no mistake, that was the plan all along. Destroy a private business cum public forum that served the public good, and on the way out see what controversial actions they can get away with. That way any site that comes to fill the void can do the same. His old mate Peter Thiel will likely be pleased, along with a bunch of other unscrupulous people.
Destroy a private business cum public forum that served the public
It's amazing to me how much people have rewritten history since musk took over. Twitter was always shit. It's worse now, yeah. A lot worse. But it's like taking a shit on a smaller pile of shit. All this talk about how it was a real boon for humanity and so important it should be regulated as a utility is equal parts idiotic and hilarious.
It's shit, but it had significant uses. Namely, getting breaking news from trusted journalists, and speaking directly to businesses for consumer support when other methods typically went unanswered.
That's not to mention the Arab Spring. Sure, significant change that people had hoped for didn't follow through, but it still spooked them enough that one of the incumbent leaders helped buy the website to undermine it.
Also, when you compare it to Facebook it certainly was better. Even reddit was better, then followed it down the drain.
I get the feeling (I wouldn't really know, haven't been there in months) that Reddit is still significantly better. Sure, it's worse now, but it still has active communities on pretty much any topic imaginable. Lemmy is on its way, but won't be there for a few years I think.
There's some genuine communities lingering on, but almost all of the larger communities have become part of the power mods' "projects".
I was shook the other day when I stopped by reddit and saw, "just a normal day in russia" at the top of the front page. As Americans we need to give up on the idea of a non-political social media because it always gets co-optd into some psy-ops bullshit.
I 100% agree it was shit. Sometimes though, that shit fertilized real growth.
That said, lesson shouldn't be, "we need twitter." It should be, let's populate similar platforms so we can have this resource in the future.
served the public good
Yeah, nah. For a start, if one website could be singled out for bringing Trump into power, it wasn't any of those icky extremist places such as 4chan, 8chan, r/trump - it was Twitter where he posted his garbage for literal years with no interruption and thus gained a massive following. The site practically lived off his controversial diarrhea.
You could say the same about reddit in a large part. 4chan was a free home, Twitter was a megaphone, but reddit really encouraged the infestation to gestate.
Also it wasn't r/trump, but r/the_Donald, as well as all the spin off astroturfed subs.
I don't disagree this is a possibility, but I have yet to hear someone clearly articulate why poopoobrain over there would do something so dumb intentionally.
I find it so much more compelling that he's just a divorce-brained middle-aged dumbass with a megaphone and billions to dig his own grave. That he was forced to buy Twitter after waving his dick around in public and has been trying to save his reputation ever since by pretending that it's all a part of his plan to amplify the right voices to 'save humanity'.
I'm not saying he isn't brain-broken enough to believe it himself, but I don't think he ever really had a plan. I think he's a sad, lonely billionaire going through the worlds biggest mid-life crisis.
but I have yet to hear someone clearly articulate why poopoobrain over there would do something so dumb intentionally.
Because it distracts from the fact that leveraged buyouts are almost always meant to kill the business in the long run, and such distraction reduces the chance of regulation against the practice. People don't think Twitter is failing because it had $13bn of debt it could never afford, they think it's failing because Musk is a poor businessman. That isn't to say Musk is a great businessman acting like a fool, rather, he is a clown acting like a fool.
I think if Musk had made a genuine effort to buy Twitter there wouldn't have been so much debt saddled onto the business. Musk was forced to make the purchase, but the nature of the purchase has subsequently been tailored into sinking the ship. One of the first things they did was stop paying rent - if this wasn't a sign of a business doomed to failure I don't know what is. The business will die a death, and everyone it owes money to will be left fighting over the ashes.
Ok, so you're not saying he actually originally wanted to buy it in order to tank it, you're saying once he was forced to buy it the most expedient thing to do was to bankrupt it.
Being pushed into buying it because of his loud mouth is still a MASSIVE blunder, him choosing to steer it into an iceberg after being handed the keys is just him cutting his losses. It doesn't explain why he would have wanted to destroy the company in the first place. If it was because the site was largely critical of him or platformed people counter to his personal worldview, then buying the company and running those voices out (like he did) would have sufficed and he wouldn't also need to tank it. Likewise, if all he wanted was to platform voices friendly to him and his worldview, burning down the house around himself and his new friends is contradictory.
I think you're giving him too much credit, I think he's just an overconfident dumbass that got himself into trouble and is trying to erase his mistake without ruining his reputation as a genius.
It doesn’t explain why he would have wanted to destroy the company in the first place.
For that, you could turn to his old friend, Peter Thiel. Thiel tried and failed to start up businesses that competed directly against Twitter. Aside from Thiel, there are plenty of other people who likely resent Twitter - such as the Saudi prince who now owns a portion of it alongside Musk.
I think the goal is to bring Twitter down, then replace it with something else. Alternatively, they could turn Twitter into what they want it to be by further financing it and covering the debt, though that seems less and less likely as time goes on. However, by sending Twitter down the toilet they can experiment with the kind of things that future platforms might be able to do - anything Twitter gets reprimanded for will ultimately have no consequence if Twitter goes away, but anything Twitter gets away with can be fair game for new start ups.
I think you’re giving him too much credit, I think he’s just an overconfident dumbass that got himself into trouble and is trying to erase his mistake without ruining his reputation as a genius.
I agree he's an overconfident dumbass and got himself into this position, and I'm sure he desperately values his reputation - the one aspect of all this that I'm enjoying is how badly his reputation is getting ruined. I still worry about more sinister things happening over the long run that may shape the future of social platforms for the worse, though.
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Twitter was literally a public company. Musk bought all the stock and took it private.
The amount of stupidity in this comment is worthy of it being posted on X
Uhhh the plan plays out the same either way. Stop being a pedantic twat missing the entire point. Musk can do it no matter the mechanism through which he bought the company: He still bought it and ran it in to the ground!!
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Twitter always sucked, and always will suck. Explain to me, in pornographic detail, how this is some huge conspiracy, what the end goal of that conspiracy is, and who is perpetuating it.
I absolutely love the ask on pornographic detail, though it's mostly the presence of many seperate but cohesive puzzle pieces. Between how he's gotten kicked out and silenced in most of his business positions, to his children hating his guts, to his dad calling his bluffs, to how he lies on stage making promises no one in the company has even heard, yet alone vetted the viability of, to how he's constantly liking extreme right-wing tweets and openly allowing anti-trans rhetoric...
It's just a very large set of puzzle pieces that spell out a very, very clear picture: Elon is a fascist-sympathising white supremacist, whether it be out of hate or general priviledged lack of empathy, the result is the same. It's mildly hidden in his eclectic pretending and mountain of lies. He doesn't even have an engineering degree like he loves to pretend.
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Let's assume that's true.
Let's also assume Twitter collapses under its own weight within the next year.
How does that further Elon's secret goal of spreading his brand of fascism and racism.
If that was Elon's goal, rather than the goal of various other people he's closely associated with (eg Peter Thiel, Saudi prince Mohammed bin Salman, to name but two of the most prominent ones), then such a goal could be fulfilled by platforms that take Twitter's place after it's gone - along with all the debt Twitter owes, including rent not being paid, state fines, lawsuits from former investors and staff, and the $13bn loan from the buyout itself.
That isn't to say this was Musk's goal all along, rather that's what it has transformed into.
I always saw it as two possible outcomes: either they make Twitter into what they always wanted from the failed startups that tried to compete against Twitter, and pay off the debt to keep it going; or they run it into the ground and write off the debt, then replace it with something more favourable. The latter seems more and more likely as time has passed.
He didn't want to crash it, that's just a consequence of his politics. He wanted to control what everyone was calling, "the new public square". Nothing more. It just turns out he's a hateful bigot and couldn't keep it in his pants enough to keep what he bought popular.
That's all it is. It's not a grand plan. It's obstinance and greed going awry. He wanted to control it TO ANY BENEFIT he could get. It dying is ALSO a benefit to him, so do not act like this is part of the main plan. It's just a viable plan B or C for a specific step.
The real plan is Project '25 or what ever, and involves A LOT more conservatives than a petulant Musk.
It’s reductive to say that it was just shit. Like any social media tool of course it had shit content. It was also the lifeblood of many journalists and intellectuals, scientists and activists. Go listen to Land of the Giants on podcast and you’ll get the full, two-sided story. (I know you won’t, that comment was for others)
Musk only took an interest in Twitter when it began trying to better manage damaging content. They did a lot in previously undefined territory - and before you tell me that moderation wasn’t new, Twitter had to face issues like whether to ban a sitting president. No forum had to face that before.
Musk’s “freedom of speech” campaign is about protecting the hate speech he loves. So while he sinks this tool that was flawed but trying hard to make itself better, it’s riddled with hate even while it sinks. I’m glad the former Twitter shareholders got a payout at Musk’s expense, but I would have preferred if they hadn’t rushed to hand the platform over to him so they could enjoy that payout.
The platform was powerful. That power worked both bad and good things. Now it’s just powerfully shitty. The shit is now unleashed, and degrading the platform’s potential for good, which was always high even if the realization of that potential was mixed.
Public company =/= publicly owned. As an American, you probably don't know what a publicly owned business is, but public schools are pretty close (again though, Americans and education...). A company in the public sector has to follow a lot more regulations than a company in the private sector. Twitter has always been in the private sector. It was publicly traded, now it is not.
Musk did not buy all the shares. Musk put up about $27 billion out of $44bn, most of which was Tesla shares (which subsequently tanked, and since then the business has been on something of a decline compared to their previous success). $5 billion came from other investors, including a Saudi prince. The remaining $13bn was a loan Twitter took out to buy itself on Musk's behalf - this is the smoking gun that ultimately will kill the business, like most leveraged buyouts are bound to (eg Toys R Us).
But no, tell me I'm stupid while you speak in hollow hyperbole.
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The fact you admit you're using your own definition of publicly owned, instead of the legal definition of that word in the country in which it applies, and then double down with a bunch of "facts" you don't understand, while really pouring on the condescension, is simply an amazing execution of trolling.
The sad thing, though, is I don't think you're trolling. I think you believe what you just said is true.
The sad thing is, even after I explained there are two definitions (public sector/private sector and publicly traded/privately traded), and after I clarified exactly which I was referring to, you still think your correction holds water.
Twitter was private sector publicly traded, then Musk took it off the public stock market. However it is and always was private sector, meaning that it's "Twitter's house" and they get to set the rules of entry. If it was public sector, then it would be obligated be open to all members of the public equally.
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The fiduciary and reporting responsibilities of public companies are drastically different than private.
Musk bought all of the shares, then took the company private, meaning all of those fiduciary and reporting responsibilities are no longer required.
Your understanding how public and private companies in the United States work is lacking.
What is public? A 501c3? c6? A government run organization like the post office? What legal and compliance frameworks did Twitter have to follow when it was publicly traded vs now when it's not publicly traded. In your terms it was "private" in both instances. So please, educate me. How is Twitter different now
Yes, public sector refers to government run entities like the post office, also anything staffed by civil servants, and to a far lesser extent businesses contracted to the state.
Publicly traded businesses do have a lot of reporting responsibilities, also the CEO is essentially obligated to pursue profits over all else on behalf of the shareholders. A privately traded business does not have these obligations. Musk made this change with the purchase of the company (but again, he did not "buy all the shares", he bought most of them, $5bn was paid by other parties compared to his ~$26bn [plus a couple bn in fees]) however Twitter as a business was always and still is private sector. This means they absolutely could have censored Trump any time they liked - or anyone else for that matter - and they still can. It's just Musk has skewed the business to one political side, and now Musk doesn't really have to answer to anyone. Even the lawsuits against him and Twitter he'll likely be able to weasle out, because it's a limited company - although I hope they do manage to make it stick, he personally made promises that the purchase was conditional upon, which he has since broken.
So, like I've said from the beginning, it has always been private sector. However, even as a private sector business, it serves as a public forum - it was always a "private business cum public forum" - but now Musk has ruined the public forum part by making it very apparently biased towards right wing extemism.
A better analogy of what Twitter was is a public house. A private sector business, but open to the public (although Twitter never had the licencing regulations that pubs have). Musk has taken over the pub and is running it into the ground, driving out the peaceful regulars in favour of unsavoury people that spill out on to the residential streets and vomit everywhere.
I never actually wanted to talk about publicly traded vs privately traded, you brought that up.
What’s your point about it being publicly owned anyway? That didn’t address anything in the comment you were responding to, unless you were nitpicking the use of “limited liability company.” In which case I’ll nitpick you back that it didn’t use capital letters. And even S Corporations do limit the personal liability of their owners, and are in fact companies.
You’ve behaved like a real ass here generally. Go do your homework or something.
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OP was spouting a bunch of nonsense implying that Elon tanking Twitter's value somehow was going to end up with him profiting.
In the United States, publicly traded companies have responsibilities to timely and accurately report their financials. By Elon taking the company private, Twitter no longer has those fiduciary requirements.
That's why I was pointing out how stupid OP was being, and banging on so hard on the public vs private company thing. Elon has, by all accounts, lost tens of billions of dollars in this whole ordeal.
Because he's lost so much money I find it incredibly ridiculous people think this is some kind of conspiracy. Less people use it, the company is looked upon less and less favorably, and it's reputation is in tatters. If you're trying to make a platform to brainwash people into being racist the last thing you'd want is LESS people using it
Where did I say Musk was going to profit?? All I said is that he took a private (sector) business that was serving as a public forum and is running it into the ground.
You then deviated off, talking about the difference between privately traded and publicly traded businesses, as if that was some salient point I had overlooked.
Musk had to make the purchase, he was forced to, thanks to his dumbassery. I'm not saying he planned this all along, but that doesn't mean he isn't trying to make something of the loss by running it into the ground and seeing what kind of dodgy precedents he can set along the way. Such precedents pave the way for new platforms that take its place after it's gone.
Mark my words, Twitter/X is going to die. To be more specific, bankruptcy within 5 years, probably far fewer.
Pretty sure users have mostly left.
Companies and public figures keep using it, because for most of them it's just some intern or bot that was posting.
It takes a while for social media to finally die because of that. They'll just stumble on like a zombie for like a decade.
The only way it'll happen faster, is if people loudly boycott anyone that's still using it. But with 99% of social media sucking ass, there's not really a place to do it from where companies and public figures will hear it.
Dang. Almost wish I got into twitter so I could see it implode under the weight of 4channers.
I'm still there because I like to know what the crazies think about stuff. It's still entertaining in its own way. For example, did you know there are business experts on Twitter even smarter than Tim Cook? It's true...
Tim Cook must be on vacation! I know this because The Sacred Man Himself could never do such horrible thing!
most news breaks on there first
I've learned about Apple pausing their ads and about Sam Altman being fired on Mastodon. it's been becoming much better replacement for Twitter in that regard, and is only going to continue to improve.
the Betteridge's Law guy told me! https://writing.exchange/@ianbetteridge/111427837747897068
I mean sporting news. I use mastodon and regularly check AP and Reuters for actual news. Mastodon isn’t even close to Twitter when it comes to sports.
For the same reason I started using it in the first place. Elon taking over haven't changed my user experience in any way. It's the same it has always been. Ironically enough it's also the only social media platform where my feed is 99.5% free of politics or talk about Elon.
The only part I hate is that real people have and will lose their jobs due to 1 person that treats this entire situation like a kids game.
Thosee people honestly took that risk working for that company. I don't go work for Walmart then cry about it killing small towns, kinda thing.
They downvoted him because he spoke the truth. I have no sympathy for anyone choosing to work at X or Meta. If you knowingly work at these companies, knowing how they're run and what they do, you're a piece of shit. These people are only there to try to boost their own careers, but they're still participating in the efforts against society that these companies impose.
I dont want to hear about how "Twitter was bought out! What would they do?" Fucking quit, that's what you do. I'd rather work at McDonalds than have Elon as my CEO.
Meta tried so hard to recruit me. It was HARD to say no. They have amazing facilities, fucking nice ass games everywhere, amazing pay, free food everywhere you look...
and they destroy democracy and freedom more everyday. But I can actually still sleep at night with my low wage somehow... wierd.
This bullshit "grindset", "do whatever it takes to give me.and mine what we know we deserve" is a subversive mental plant that's been growing as a seedling from the first time you saw a TV commercial with happy kids playing with better toys than you. And it's all bullshit. News flash, you and yours aren't special and you don't deserve anything extra. However, we we all collectively do deserve better. Just not individually. It's a grand lie and these morons keep conflating it.
You don't NEED that job at X, or Meta. You WANT it, because you think you're special and have earned the right to harm the world that tiiiiiny immeasurable amount, so you and yours can get thier cake. It's a lie, and we all deserve cake. Don't skip the line.
> I'd rather work at McDonalds than have Elon as my CEO.
> If you knowingly work at [McDonald's], knowing how they're run and what they do, you're a piece of shit.
Seems I can apply this to everything.
To my knowledge, McDonalds isnt trying to upend our democracy, nor are they inciting Nazis in their restaurants as well as discriminating against other protected classes. Yeah their food sucks but at least they aren't causing the downfall of society.
What if this? What if that? What if the sky falls??
edit: listen, alright, the HB-1 worker system has been fucked for a long time and needs a serious, honest overhaul, these massive companies are abusing the shit out of it, and not ever intending to provide permanent positions etc, I see it all the time. Write your congressmen and ask for them to provide relief funding for victims of HB-1 employer-side contract abuse or whatever its going to wind up being called. They absolutely deserve better, and its FUCKED to trick people into working for cheap and ship them back off to a worse life when the time is up. But that takes time. So you better get moving, because twitter is a falling tower already, with or without my apparent egregious sentiments.
Nearly all companies are cash-chasing shitholes. The real problem here is the disparity of wealth between top and bottom.
So they can start advertising on it again in two weeks when people aren't paying as much attention again, duh. Just like when all those corporations stopped donating to insurrectionist Republicans, for about three seconds.
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They could remove the app from their app store if they cared.
This is practically nothing compared to doing that.
You're asking a corporation to care for human values when its only purpose is to generate revenue...
Just a pause? Planning on hanging out with the #fascists a bit later maybe?
Between this & the Jon Stewart / China bullshit, I'm so glad I never gave Apple's e-trash a second thought.
The worst thing is reading news with X in the middle of the sentences, it looks like a math problem.
If Apple really wanted to send a message, they would suspend the Twitter App (I can’t bring myself to call it by the stupid CyberTruck name) from the App Store.
Maybe after another 11 months of this…
Even if companies do something absolutely heinous, people will stay. That's why consumer experience is so shit.
What was the original tweet that he said he agreed with? I'd prefer to judge for myself.
Okay.
Jewish communties have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.
I'm deeply disinterested in giving the tiniest shit now about western Jewish populations coming to the disturbing realization that those hordes of minorities that support flooding their country don't exactly like them too much.
You want truth said to your face, there it is.
I have no idea what he's on about. Jews have been pushing "dialectical hatred"? Does he even know what "dialectic" means?
I was about to defend the usage of the word dialectical here but then remembered nazis can get fucked
I don't see any of the hardware news and reviews you've posted. Did the mods delete them, or am I just experiencing one of Lemmy's glitches?