May 25, 2023

No, Twitter hasn’t magically become brand safe again

Earlier this month, we shared that WPP — one of the world’s biggest advertising agency groups — quietly invited Elon Musk to speak at WPPStream, the company’s annual conference.

Its CEO Mark Read told a reporter: “Twitter has become a lot more stable over the last few months.”

This week, GroupM - WPP’s media arm - announced that they no longer consider Twitter a “high risk” media investment.

How is that possible? What is going on here?

WPP clearly appears to have some kind of a backdoor deal with Elon. So please allow us to give you the real scoop on the REAL current state of Twitter.

Over the last few weeks, Twitter has made a bunch of moves that should concern advertisers.

Tucker Carlson, America’s most popular white nationalist, has shared that he plans to exclusively stream his show on Twitter — the show that sent advertisers running from his Fox News slot, before he was fired.

Twitter quietly rolled back its hateful conduct policy last month, and the explosion in unmoderated hate on Twitter has been so impressive that The Daily Wire — home to all manner of hatemongers, including the brains behind the transphobic Bud Light boycott, Matt Walsh — has proudly proclaimed Twitter a “free speech platform.”

• You might also recognize Matt Walsh from his role in fueling the transphobic panic about the Boston Children’s Hospital, which has since dealt with bomb threats and incessant harassment.

Twitter launched Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ presidential bid — that’s after Elon Musk tweeted last year that for Twitter “to deserve public trust, it must be politically neutral.” It’s worth remembering that DeSantis’ so-called “Don’t Say Gay” law has more than half of LGBTQ parents considering moving out of the state, according to a UCLA survey.

Twitter also allowed an apparently AI-generated image of an explosion at the Pentagon to spread — including fake Bloomberg account, verified by Twitter Blue — causing the Dow Jones to drop 85 points in just four minutes.

Oh, and there were those cat torture videos left to proliferate across the app.

We don’t know why WPP believes Twitter is suddenly safe for brands. Maybe it’s because of the new CEO, Linda Yaccarino, who was a longtime ad executive at NBC. But what we do know is that the advertising agency group will pocket a portion of every ad dollar their clients spend on Twitter.

As for Linda? Her boss is still Elon Musk — the guy who takes his orders from a Twitter user named Catturd2.