Apple is the latest company to desert Twitter following Elon Musk’s multibillion-dollar acquisition of the company late last month, the new CEO has announced – as a new report revealed that half of the firm’s top advertisers have pulled their partnerships with the site in recent weeks.
According to nonprofit watchdog group Media Matters, 50 of the platform’s top 100 advertisers, which have accounted for about $2 billion in spending since the start of 2020.
High-profile companies to issue statements about halted advertising on the site in recent weeks have included Chevrolet, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Ford, and Jeep.
Other noticeable names to apparently nix their relationship with the company consist of cheese giant Kraft, Coca Cola, Nestle, Chanel, AT&T, CNN, Heineken, and Kellogg’s – dubbed ‘quiet quitters’ by the watchdog, due to their stopping advertisements without issuing a formal statement outlining their doing so.
Per a flippant tweet from Musk , it appears that Apple has joined that list – with the mogul writing Monday that Apple has ‘mostly stopped’ advertising on the platform.
The mass exodus largely stems over ethical concerns regarding the company’s planned new direction under Musk, 51, who has aired plans to increase revenue through subscriptions and offer users increased ‘free speech.’
Musk’s plans – which has already seen the restoring of previously banned accounts like the one owned by former president Donald Trump – have proved polarizing not only in terms of morals, but have put it at odds with with companies like Apple, whose terms and services allows them a cut from purchases made from these ads.
New Twitter Elon Musk has revealed that Apple is the latest company to desert the platform following Elon Musk’s multibillion-dollar acquisition of the company – as a new report revealed that half of the firm’s top advertisers have pulled partnerships with the site in recent weeks
Per a flippant tweet from Musk, it now appears that Apple has joined that list, with the mogul writing Monday that Apple has ‘mostly stopped’ advertising on the platform
‘Apple has mostly stopped advertising on Twitter,’ the South African mogul wrote Monday.
‘Do they hate free speech in America?’ Musk went on to add, a day after the exec reportedly called CEOs from many of the aforementioned companies to complain of the mass pullout, which has transpired since Musk acquired the platform at the end of October, for the lump sum of $44billion.
Recent posts show that of those companies to pause their advertising over the past few weeks, none have returned to the social media service as of Monday.
Over the weekend, industry insiders told the Financial Times that Twitter’s current ad situation – which has seen them lose over $750 million in advertising in 2022 alone, according to Media Matters’ report – has worsened in recent weeks, as agencies have seen decreased communication with Twitter’s ads business team due to so few staff being left following Musk’s mass layoffs.
Since taking control of the company, Musk has laid off around 50 percent of the original 7,500 workforce – while accepting resignations from 1,200 more.
That said, the majority of companies cited by Media Matters fit the ‘quiet quitter’ classification, while other companies to issue formal statements included M&M maker Mars, General Motors, and pharma companies Merck & Co. and Novartis AG.
Musk, meanwhile, recently shared slides from recent talks with Twitter workers citing a drastic reduction in hate speech since his $44billion takeover.
Musk recently shared slides from recent talks with Twitter workers citing a drastic reduction in hate speech since his $44billion takeover
The slides posted to Musk’s twitter page show that between October 17 and November 13 hate speech impressions are lower
Musk also reported that new user signups were at an all time high averaging over 2 million per day in the past 7 days
Twitter 2.0 ‘The Everything App’ was teased in the post, boasting advertising as entertainment, encrypted messaging, video, the relaunch of Blue verified and new payment options
These new figures, counter reports early last month which claimed an uptick in the amount of hateful language being tweeted in the wake of Musk taking the helm
The slides, posted to on his Twitter page, show between October 17 and November 13 hate speech impressions are lower.
The CEO also reported new user signups were at an all time high, averaging over two million per day in the past week.
These new figures counter reports early last month which claimed an uptick in the amount of hateful language being tweeted in the wake of Musk taking the helm.
In the week beginning October 31, the first full week under Musk’s ownership, the Center for Countering Digital Hate claimed the use of racist, homophobic, transphobic and anti-Semitic slurs soared significantly after he took over on October 27.
It found 26,228 tweets and retweets mentioning the racist slur n****r, triple that of the 2022 average.
33,926 tweets and retweets mentioned the slur t****y, up 53 percent on the 2022 average.
The slur f****t was up 39 percent with 21,903 tweets and retweets, while 2,598 tweets and retweets mentioning the slur k**e, up 23 percent on the 2022 average.
1,256 tweets and retweets mentioning the slur w*g, up 62 percent, while 935 tweets and retweets mentioning the slur s**c, up 67 percent on the 2022 average.
The center said that the figures show that despite claims from Twitter’s Head of Trust and Safety, Yoel Roth, that the platform had succeeded in reducing the number of times hate speech was being seen on Twitter’s search and trending page, the actual volume of hateful tweets had in fact spiked.
This has been countered in the slides from Musk’s ‘Twitter company talk’ in which the business magnate also teased a new payment feature.
On Thursday AP reported that the European Union released data which suggested Twitter took longer to review hateful content and removed less of it in 2022 compared with the previous year.
EU figures were published as part of an annual evaluation of online platforms’ compliance with the 27-nation bloc’s code of conduct on disinformation.
Twitter wasn’t alone, most other tech companies signed up to the voluntary code also scored worse.
But the figures could foreshadow trouble for Twitter in complying with the EU’s tough new online rules after owner Musk fired many of the platform’s 7,500 full-time workers and an untold number of contractors responsible for content moderation and other crucial tasks.
The EU report, carried out over six weeks in the spring, found Twitter assessed just over half of the notifications it received about illegal hate speech within 24 hours, down from 82 percent in 2021.
In comparison, the amount of flagged material Facebook reviewed within 24 hours fell to 64 percent, Instagram slipped to 56.9 percent and YouTube dipped to 83.3 percent while TikTok, came in at 92 percent, the only company to improve.
The amount of hate speech Twitter removed after it was flagged up slipped to 45.4 percent from 49.8 percent the year before.
TikTok’s removal rate fell by a quarter to 60 percent, while Facebook and Instagram only saw minor declines. Only YouTube’s takedown rate increased, surging to 90 percent.
