It's one thing if you show up to a party and there's a few people there who were awful. It is quite another if you show up to the party and the host is awful. There are no girls on the Internet. As a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative, I'm Bridge Tad and this is there are no girls on the Internet. Okay, So Mike. For folks who listen to the newscast, they might recall that we do a little segment from time to time all about Elon Musk and Twitter.
Yeah, that's right.
Were doing it like every week for a while because it was just like one dumb thing after another, NonStop.
Yeah, And I've kind of been, I don't know if you've noticed, kind of been lessening the amount of times I talk about Elon Musk or trying to, I guess if I'm going to be keep it really real, trying to lessen the amount of times I talk about Elon Musk on the podcast.
It has been a while since we've I've heard about Elon on here. What's the deal, Bridget, I don't know. I think it just got to be a little bit too much, you know. I still plan on doing those segments on the newscast, But it just felt like every day he was doing something infuriating and it was taking up a lot of room from other things that we
could be diving into. Honestly, I think if I talked about every instance of Elon Musk doing something infuriating or objectionable, it would be all we talked about on this podcast. And listen, there are many good tech podcasts out there that are dedicated to solely covering Elon Musk and solely covering his tenure at Twitter. Their good podcasts recommend them. That is not my ministry. I do not want to.
Publish an Elon Musk themed podcast, but if I were to cover everything that he says and does, I absolutely would find myself doing that.
Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, he's somebody who is in the news a lot, doing stupid things a lotten Those stupid things have implications and harm for the sorts of people that we try to elevate on this podcast. So yeah, it would just take up all of the damn space.
But there's actually a lot going on with Elon and Twitter right now, so I thought we might be overdue on an update. So consider this a super sized version of our news roundup segment.
What's Elon done? Now?
Okay, so here's what's going on.
First of all, I have to start by sort of giving you a bit of context, which is that Elon Musk has been trafficking in hate for a very long time.
This is not new for him.
I don't necessarily feel like it got enough attention when he was first and talks to buy Twitter way back when. But the whole reason that he said that he wanted to buy Twitter in the first place was rooted in transphobia. According to his own text messages revealed in court, he didn't like that Twitter had rules against dead naming and misgendering trans people, and it prompted his interest in buying the platform initially to turn it into some kind of so called quote free speech utopia.
So let's be.
Really really clear about who he is and who he has always been. I feel like a lot of folks, even folks that I respect, in tech journalism tech media, really kind of sold this false narrative that, oh, Elon is a genius. If he's doing these hateful things, if he's tweeting sexist, transphobic, racist things, he must be playing three dimensional chests this must be some genius move. We don't understand either that or they did not cover this
aspect of who he is at all. Only now do I think we're starting to see, Please places really catch up and cover him thoughtfully and accurately to who he is, what he says, and the things that he does. But for a long time, I don't think that was the case. So I just want to root this whole conversation in that reality that this is.
None of this is new. This is who he is.
This is who he's always been, and he's always shown himself to be this kind of person, and we ought to believe him.
That this is who he is.
Yeah, he does a very good job acting the role of a fun party boy genius who's trying to do good in the world. And I think that's like really appealing and captivating to people. And maybe that's why so many people are like not only eager to take him at his word, but almost like trying to actively erase these things that he says with his words, you know, like trying to wanting to buy Twitter because he didn't like its policies against trans people as just like one example.
Oh yeah, I mean the word that I would use is launder.
I have to say that a lot of my colleagues who make content about technology have done the dirty business of laundering his bad behavior and making it more palatable. And I have a lot of suspen as to why
that was. But I think that one a lot of these places just don't have the range, right Like, if you don't have the range to dive into the way that things like transphobia, sexism, racism are impacting not just who he is as a person, but his business and financial moves, moves that impact all of us, you might be less inclined to have that inform your reporting about him, even though it is absolutely unequivocally part of the story
of how he runs businesses. You know, this is someone who has been accused of mistreating his workers along racial lines, around along gender lines, right Like, this is absolutely part and parcel to how he runs businesses. So if you're somebody who makes media or writes or covers about technology and you're leaving that out, well you're leaving out a huge relevant part of the story.
Yeah.
I think the idea that people don't have the range to cover the implications of his hateful statements is really interesting because I think he counts on a similar thing regarding his a lot of his technical statements.
I feel it's.
Almost a meme at this point that it's easy to think Elon Musk is a genius until he says something about a domain that you happen to know something about, and I feel it feels like there's a lot of parallels with what you were just talking about, where journalists maybe don't have the range to really contextualize the impact
of his transphobic or racist or anti semitic statements. Similarly, people just take him at his word that he's a tech genius who will revolutionize social media and create the new everything app that users have been clamoring for, which doesn't seem to be working out super great.
I think never underestimate how much people will believe you when you are a wealthy white guy who says you're a genius and Mike to your point about buying Twitter and like revolutionizing it, if I were to get into the depths of it, we would be here for hours. But let me just say this as somebody who has studied social media worked at social media companies ben in
the space for a long time. Ben In rooms with people who are way smarter than I am, who have been working at this for many, many years, longer than I have, and we all cannot agree on how to do this right. Like the what we're going to talk about today, content moderation and how you keep hate off of platforms is very complicated. It's very complex. There's not like one simple answer. Smart people learned, people accomplished. People have been arguing about it since there was social media.
The hubris that.
It takes to walk in and be like, well, I can do this, it like it fills me with such a deep rage and to.
Have people be like, maybe he can do it.
He has never done this before, and there's no background in it, and people who have been doing it for like decades haven't been able to figure it out. And it's not really an easy thing. But I don't know, maybe he's a genius and he can figure it out.
He's so obviously not up to the task of figuring out social media these like really difficult, abstract, high level problems. I remember one of the first things he did when he took over Twitter was, uh, you know, fire a bunch of people, and then the engineers who were left. I forget the exact details, but it was like they had to meet with him and show him like how many lines of code they were writing each week, which is the craziest metric by which to judge engineers.
Yes, but that's the thinking of someone who doesn't know what they're doing of like, well, just obviously more equals good, right, Like that's the only that's the only way my brain can understand this is.
Like, like that has to be the way it works, right.
Yeah, right, more code equals better, right, Like obviously, Yeah, That's that's always what engineers are saying.
It's like if a caveman was run in Twitter.
Okay, so Elon Musk.
He tweets and does misogynistic things, racist things, transphobic things, and has trafficked in anti semitism before too a lot of times. In the past it's been this brand of kind of wink wink nod nod anti semitism, like dog whistles, but last week he engaged in pretty overt anti semitism. Musk posted to Twitter, you have said the actual truth in response to a post that claimed that Jewish people support quote dialectical hatred against whites.
I feel like the word dialectical is having a renaissance. Maybe people have been talking about dialecticals this whole time and I've just been laid to the party.
Well, I kind of get what you mean that.
It might be one of those words that people who are trying to make their terrible, messed up opinions sound like high art and like high falutin. There are a couple of words like that that I've definitely heard in college classes where it's like, oh, you are just trying to make your horrible opinion sound refined?
Is that sort of what you mean?
That is kind of what I mean.
It feels like one of these words that like you just kind of sprinkle it in and it adds an air of authority or learnedness. It's like I'm referencing nineteenth century philosophers. Clearly what I'm saying isn't dumb, but like, what is it actually adding?
Right?
Like my flavor of anti Semitism is actually very learned?
Right?
Like you know, he in this quote that you just read, he said that they were supporting dialectical hatred against whites. What is the word dialectical really adding in that sentence other than connotations of you know, I'm someone who's read philosophy. This is a learned take, not just hate.
Totally agree.
So this kind of feels like yet another tipping point for the platform. I think I've said that before on the podcast, that like, oh, this is a new low, this is a new low. But no, this is a really this is a real new low. I think it feels like a new low in a situation that was already not so great. Elon Musk's remarks drew widespread condemnation.
The White House even weighed in saying it is unacceptable to repeat the hideous lie behind the most fatal act of anti Semitism in American history at any time, let alone one month after the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust. This is from White House spokesperson Andrew Bates in a statement. A little side note here, which is that the White House putting out this statement
is one thing. But you know, the reality is that the American government is pretty deeply entangled with Elon Musk right now to communications and technology infrastructure. In addition to owning and tanking Twitter and also Tesla, Musk runs the high speed satellite internet provider Starlink. That's been a major factor in both the war and Ukraine and the conflict
in Gaza. And right now there's over a billion dollars worth of Elon Musk's SpaceX technology about to launch Pentagon tech into space, and so, you know, I agree with this statement. However, the reality is that American civic infrastructure and public infrastructure remains pretty entangled with and reliant on in a lot of ways Elon Musk, and so yeah, it sounds great, but what can they really do when that is the case.
Yeah, and not just our civic infrastructure are military infrastructure, right, Like we should definitely link to Ronan Pharaoh's piece in the show notes about how star Link has been kind of instrumental in Ukraine's war against Russia and how awkward a position that has put the Pentagon into of you know this this military ally in a life and death conflict being so dependent on Starlink, which is a private company owned by this mercurial.
Guy.
And I think that's the thing, like at the very like base level, do you really want like if you see the way that Elon Musk tweets if you've ever seen him on the Joe Rogan Show, which it needs to be part of my job to watch Joe Rogan podcasts, and I have seen him on those podcasts. You would say, like, this is not somebody that we want deeply entangled in like life or deay military operations, right, Like, it's just
that simple. And I think that it really does mirror the relationship that a lot of us myself unfortunately very much included, have with Elon Musk's Twitter, right, Like, we hate it for lots of really valid reasons, but in other ways, you know, leaving Twitter outright can feel really hard, especially given that it doesn't really feel like there's one place that has a merge to replace it necessarily. It's certainly the way that I feel. You know, I don't
like Elon Musk. I don't like the idea that every day that I'm showing up on this platform, I am essentially complicit in his reign over this technology. Like, I don't like that. I don't like my personal individual role
in that dynamic. I want to stop using it. However, it has also become such a big part of my own media diet, right It's it's how I collect stories for the podcasts and perspective for the podcast and it's also just hard to give up on those days where I felt like Twitter was the place that you could find legitimate community and build real political power and social power and like lead to actual change. But these days, no, I don't feel that way on the platform at all.
I think I shared this on the Patreon episode that we did a while back about my decision whether to stay on Twitter or leave Twitter. But not that long ago, I was called a straight up racial slur on Twitter and it's been a while since that kind of thing has happened, And it was a racial slur that I had never heard before in my thirty out of years as a black woman on this planet.
I had to look it up on Urban Dictionaire.
And I was like, oh, they're like coming out with new racial slurs on Twitter now, who knew? But like, so, like the vibes are not good, right, I'll be the first person to admit that, But where would we go, Like, I don't think that we have anything right now that would actually be a replacement for it.
And it's a real catch twenty two because I think exactly that feeling is what keeps people there and perpetuates its status as like the place that people are.
Absolutely and I won't need to say, like, that's not unique to Twitter. I think Facebook did the same thing, where it's like this is where my friends are, this is how I remember my friend's birthdays, Like this is how I go to events, That's how I find out about events. Platforms intentionally make you feel like your entire world is on their platforms. What's that much easier for
you to be like, I'm out. I don't want this, because it means that breaking up with that platform is going to feel like breaking up with your friends, your community, how you remember birthdays, how you keep track of people in your that you went to school with, how you keep track of events happening in your local community, all
of that right, and so that's by design. However, the White House actually announced today that they were joining the Twitter alternative Threads, which we talked about on the podcast before. I think you and I both tried it briefly. I haven't logged it in a while. Maybe it's pop it over there, or I need to like dip back in. Maybe I will. And I do think that Biden's campaign being on threads will cause a lot of journalists and
media makers. The folks who made up a big contingent of like what kept Twitter moving to be spending more time on thread. So that's I thought that was kind of an interesting kind of We'll see about this whole situation.
Let's take a quick break.
And are back.
So the White House was not the only place fed up with Elon Musk's antics. On November eighth, Media Matters staffer Eric Hananok published a report showing Nazi content on Twitter alongside advertisements for major brands. Hananochi rights as ex owner Elon Musk continues his descent into white nationalists and anti Semitic conspiracy theories. His social media platform has been placing ads for major brands like Apple, Bravo, IBM, Oracle, Exfinity next to content that house Adolf Hitler and his
Nazi party. The company's placements come after CEO Linda Yakarino claimed that brands are protected from the risk of being
next to toxic posts on the platform. We also saw one hundred and seventy one rabbis, leaders of Jewish organizations, artists, activists, and academics publish a letter pressuring brands to stop advertising on Twitter, saying Elon Musk is spreading the kind of antisemitism that leads to massacres, and advertisers are funding the platform that allows him to spread his ideology to hundreds of millions of people.
Yeah, I can imagine that that group of Rabbis didn't love seeing all that Nazi content, you know.
No, absolutely, And so these companies actually did start suspending their advertising from Twitter, first IBM, then Apple, Warner Brothers, Lionsgate, Discovery, Paramount, and Sony have all left too. Now, this is kind
of a huge deal. According to The Washington Post, Apple was Twitter's biggest ad buyer during the first quarter of twenty twenty two, an ad by amounting to forty eight million dollars in Q one meant that Apple accounted for a whopping four percent of Twitter's total revenue for the quarter. So that's like a non trivial amount of revenue. So if they lose Apple, they could be losing a big chunk of their money.
Yeah, that's a big chunk. It's interesting that Apple spent forty eight million dollars in a single quarter advertising on Twitter.
That's kind of mind blowing.
And as the Media Matters piece points out, this comes after Twitter's maybe kind of sort of question mark CEO Linda Yacarino had been talking a very big game about wooling back advertisers and brands, promising them that their ads will not be showing up next to Nazi content, which I gotta be honest, that's like such a sad promise. First of all, it's not like there's not Nazi content. It's like, yeah, we all know there's Nazi content on this platform, but we can let's.
Just start from there.
We all know that it's not your ads will be seen by lots of people, or your ads will perform well, it's just there will not be a literal picture of Adolf Hitler next to it. And they can't even deliver on that.
Like very sad When you say it like that, it's it is very sad. It's such a such a low bar that they're still failing to hit.
Another thing to note here is that one of the brands that is pulling their advertising is Comcast. Comcast owns Bravo and NBC, and Linda Yakarino was formerly in a high up advertising executive at NBC, So if she's not even able to confidently woo back her where she worked most recently before she was at Twitter. She's not even able to woo back them as an advertiser. That is really telling me something that like something is deeply wrong and advertisers are not happy.
Yeah, understandably so, and it's I mean, it's bad.
The Media Matters report, which will put in the show notes, is pretty damning. It has all of these screenshots of brand tweets like advertisements next to like to roll over Nazi posts, like actual pictures end quotes of Hitler. So but that'll be next to like an ad for an Apple product or like an ad inviting you to hang out with the Real Housewives at bravocon right, Like, it's a very weird switch.
We'll throw it in the show notes. Very damning.
So this is not really anything new for social media platforms, especially ones that rely on user generated content. I used to work for a platform called Medium, and when we were be hyping up the platform to potential people to partner with us, we've been one of the ways that we would do it is by showing people how like if they had a serious op ed and they ran it at like a traditional media website, it might be running alongside those awful like sponsor those scammy sponsored ads
that you see at the bottom of websites. It will be like, you won't believe how terrible the actress that played Jam on The Brady Bunch looks now with like an unflattering picture of her, or like, here's what your doctor doesn't want you to know about belly fat next to like a picture of like a stomach spilling out over some tight jeans.
You know what I'm talking about?
Those ass Oh those ads are so terrible and they're so obvious, but they're also so good at like enticing me to want to click on them, Like I don't I never click on them because I try to never click on I don't know shit that people are trying to like pay money to get me to click on It just feels wrong. But there's some of them are so good at like appealing to my basest interest of like what does jan from the Brady Bunch look like?
Now?
Like that short is an unflattering picture of her? What a terrible angle her mouth is open? Let's just see So ads showing up to this kind of problematic content online is not new, and brands have always had to navigate that for like as long as they've been advertising online. But what is new and specific and unique to Twitter is that you don't usually have the owner who has made himself this like very visible person and on the platform endorsing those same kind of problematic views.
Like it's one thing if you show up.
To a party and there's a few people there who are awful. It is quite another if you show up to the party and the host is awful, and that awful host is also high fiving and like hyping up all of the awful people at the party. It's a totally different thing. And I think that that's what brands are responding to in this moment.
That is such a good analogy. Why would a person want to stay at this party?
You would leave?
You would be like, oh, I have to get out of here, right. I've been at parties like that, not with Nazis, but with other like other less objectionable forces, and you know what you do?
You leave.
That's what these brands are doing. These big companies like your ibms and your apples can really set the tone for the space, and so if they're pausing will it can create a domino effect where other companies will get the idea and pause as well. So after these advertisers left. Elon Musk took responsibility for his tweets and the way that they had normalized hate on the platform. Oh wait, sorry,
I misreading that. What he actually did is what he always does, which was tweet a million tweets and then threaten a lawsuit. He tweeted the split second the court opens on Monday, X Corp will be filing a thermonuclear lawsuit against Media Matters and all those who colluded in this fraudulent attack on our company.
I'm sure they're terrified a thermonuclear lawsuit.
Also, a second note, does this not sound like something a supervillain would tweet? Like this is giving lex Luthor, it's giving supervillain?
Am I am?
I wrong?
It's definitely giving supervillain threatening a lawsuit thermonuclear. It's intense, and it's X Corp. Who's gonna do this? Like that's the name of a super villain's company.
X Corp.
Yes, it doesn't even have like a like a real name.
It's just X a normal name.
It's like such a not normal name.
Okay, So I actually have.
To give Elon a little bit of credit here because he actually tweeted something and then followed through on it, which for him, you know, you never know. He tweets all kinds of stuff and like it doesn't come to fruition. But here he tweeted that there was going to be a lawsuit, and there is a lawsuit because earlier today we're recording this. On Monday, he actually did file the lawsuit.
In it, he accused Media Matters of defaming Twitter, saying that they quote manufactured or contrived the screenshots in their report, and that Media Matters had not found the ads as claimed, but rather quote created these pairings in secrecy. The suit specifically names the individual Media Matter staffer who wrote the report, Eric Hananok. In the lawsuit, Twitter's again maybe CEO Linda Yakermino responded to the Media Matters support confirming that the
screenshots were real, like in a literal sense. She tweeted, if you know me, you know I'm committed to truth and fairness.
So here's the truth.
Not a single author and tick user on x saw IBM's Comcasts or Oracles ads next to the content and Media Matters article. Only two users saw Apple's ad next to the content, at least one of which was Media Matters. Data wins over manipulation and allegations, don't be manipulated. Stand with X, which, first of all, I feel like that is the tweet of somebody who is perhaps a little bit unaware of how little goodwill people have for Twitter.
And also Elon Musk right now, like other than the deepest Elon Musk fanboys who out there is like, yeah, X is part of my identity, Like I need to align with them. I need to like that is part of who I am aligning with this platform.
Yeah, with X, I'm part of X. It's like such an uninspiring name.
I know.
I just don't think it's how most people feel about social media platforms. Even when we were having conversations about potentially banning TikTok, people who were, you know, prolific TikTokers, they weren't saying like, I stand with TikTok like they was. It wasn't like a you know, thing that they were making part of their identity. A lot of those folks that I talked to were like, oh, I'll be the first person to tell.
You about the problems on TikTok. Oh, I've been talking about X y Z issues with TikTok.
I think this idea of like you need Like, I don't know a lot of people who would have this level of brand loyalty to a social media platform that she is like conjuring up in this tweet.
That's actually a really interesting observation because yeah, I don't either. It seems nuts, but that's absolutely what she's doing, you know, like promoting Twitter or X as like an identity thing, like you're either with us or against us, stand with X.
Yeah, that's kind of wild.
Yeah, I just don't think that's how social media platforms fit. I don't think that's how people think about social media platforms. I think that, you know, not that long ago, Elon Musk was behaving in an incredibly hostile manner toward people who use Twitter, and now to turn around and be like, oh, we want you to stand with us. It's like, it's not really how it works. And even if that wasn't the case, I don't think. I don't think that's how people think about social media platforms in general.
Full stap.
It's really interesting that that's how she phrased it, Like it kind of suggested that's how they think about it, that maybe they're not thinking about X as a social media platform. Maybe they're thinking about it as like an in group or a club of their people who want to be there, reading Elon's in name tweets, entering their banking information so they can bank there, using it for video calls, all the stuff that they talk about wanting to do with it.
Maybe that's how they view it.
I think there are a small faction of people for whom that is the case, Like I think it's Elon Musk fanboys, probably some like aspiring tech thought leader types who have kind of bought in. But listen, you need more than that small faction of people to run a successful company. You can't just like build out this like small in group of people who will always agree with what you say to build your company a company like Twitter,
that's just like knocking. It's not going to be a fruitful and sustainable way to build a.
Platform, certainly not financially sustainable. But maybe that's not what they care about. Maybe Elon just wants his fanboys to stand with X. Stand with X is the craziest thing that I've heard all week long. It's like patriotic sounding incitement for people to stand with X, Like come on, get over yourself.
I mean, we are talking about Elon Musk, the same person who launched an AI chatbot to tell him how funny he is and how much everybody likes him, how much everybody thinks he's so funny on social media.
That's what we're talking about, So keep that in mind.
Yeah.
Also, the same guy who had Twitter's engineers changed the algorithm to boost his tweets, like specifically.
Yeah, the same guy who thinks that his genetics are like superior to other people's genetics, and so he has as many children as he can to spread his super genetics to as many people as he can to repopulate the earth within his image.
Oh okay, that's we got to bring it back. We could be here all night and it's going from bad to worse. You were talking about his lawsuit against Media Matters.
Yes, okay, So here's my thing about this lawsuit. Musk's suit is saying that Media Matters has manufactured those images in the report, but Yacharino has already confirmed in her
tweet that they are real in a literal sense. The only thing that makes sense that they could be arguing is that they're saying that Media Matters is like using a dummy Twitter account that they have where they have followed or engaged with accounts that post Nazi stuff on the platform, and that is why they are seeing those kinds of tweets in their Twitter feeds next to ads for Apple and IBM, Like they followed a bunch of Nazi accounts, they followed, they followed our advertisers, and now
they're just like getting those images. So like manufactured, I think is a bit strong, but what they're arguing is that the typical Twitter user probably would not be seeing
those tweets next to those brands advertisings. But as a really good piece for tech Crunch points out, Twitter, by their own admission in the suit, was aware that these accounts posted Nazi content and allowed them to do that and allowed them to continue making money through Twitter's revenue program until Media Matters pointed it out with the report. The piece reads, the lawsuit says that these accounts were no to produce extreme fringe content, yet they were not
demonetized until after Media Matters pointed them out. So x knew they were extreme, but did not demonetize them. That is what the lawsuit expressly states.
Okay, hold on, so two things here.
Their defense was the only reason that those ads had Nazi imagery next to them was because we thought the account wanted to see Nazi imagery, right, Like that's their defense there, Yeah more or less. Yeah, yeah, okay, cool, probably not a great So again.
No dispute that Nazi imagery is like available for people to see.
Yeah, but they're disputing that non Nazis would see it. They're like, no, no, we only show Nazi stuff to Nazis.
Yeah.
Basically they're saying like you would have to be a Nazi who also follows like IBM and Apple to see this content, which, like.
That's probably not a ton of people. But I don't think that's.
Some like wild scenario that like media matters quote manufactured.
Yeah.
The whole idea here is that people who believe in a free society should be actively trying the thwart Nazis, not serve content to them that they want to see. That seems to be a point that is missed. But the other thing that you just said, these accounts that were producing the Nazi material in question in the report, they were monetized. They were like getting paid to produce this material for Twitter.
Well that all depends, do you think Elon is actually mailing out checks. But yes, they were, Like they were monetized according to this report.
They were.
They via Twitter's revenue starting program. They were eligible to make money. Whether not Elon pays up or not or is doing funny math on that, I cannot say, but like, yeah, they were able until this report was published, they were monetized. It was not until Media Matters published this report that Twitter demonetized them.
How is that not the top line of this report?
Like, ugh, more after a quick break, let's get right back into it.
So we're talking about the thermonuclear lawsuit that Elon Musk filed against Media Matters for their report showing ads next to Nazi content on Twitter. Musk and Twitter CEO Lindia Parrino are saying that no actual users saw ads next to the content, which they do not dispute is on the platform notably, but they say that Media Matters is only seeing it because they followed or searched a bunch
of Nazi content themselves. They're arguing that this is Media Matters quote manufacturing the content, which they say is fraud pretty dubious disinformation. Researcher doctor Carolyn Orbueno actually made a really good point about all of this on Twitter, saying that what Media Matters has actually done is reveal what's known as a data void on Twitter. She said the issue at the heart of Elon Musk's lawsuit against Media Matters is who is responsible for data voids when they're discovered.
Media Matters identified a bunch of many data voids on Twitter where problematic content lives, and then reported on it rather than exploiting them. When you search for an obscure or rarely used hashtag or set of keywords like what Media Matters did and what a lot of people are doing now on Twitter, you will often stumble upon data voids or informational dark spaces. That is not fraud. This
is a well known phenomena. Data voids or informational dark spaces are extremely vulnerable to manipulation and exploitation, often by extremists. It's not fraud when someone searches for and identifies a data void. In this case, Media Matters use the platform's own search function to identify ads that Twitter itself placed on the platforms. Twitter could have removed ads from these
search terms, but they didn't listen. As somebody who has done the kind of work that Media Matters is doing with the support in a kind of way, like gathering content that breaks social media platforms as stated terms of service and user agreements. Twitter really ought to be thanking Media Matters for doing what should be their jobs or the jobs of their trust and safety teams. I'm sure it's like one person, if they have anybody there at all,
and doing that unpaid. Might I add right, like being like, hey, this is your terms of service. Here's a bunch of content that you are monetized that, per your terms of service, should not be monetized. That is actually a favor that Media Matters is doing to Twitter. They honestly should be doing it themselves, but they're not doing it. So like it's just such thankless work. And I feel like in a different world that work would not be punished by
a lawsuit. It would actually be you would be thanked for it, and in another world thanks for it by being given fucking money.
Yeah, that would be a different world for sure.
As ridiculous as all of this is, even more ridiculously Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, do you remember Ken Paxton?
I do? Yeah, He's like, what do you remember about him.
Uh, he's risen to national clown prominence as the attorney general in Texas who was indicted by his own party, that party being Republicans in Texas for corruption. He was it's not a party known for I don't know, throwing out its own like his party was in control of the legislature in Congress and they indicted him for corruption and somehow he beat it. And we were talking about his some previous little stunt of his right, Yeah.
His last the last time that we talked about him on the podcast, he was doing a little stunt where he was suing the platform YELP because YELP was accurately, per his own office, accurately describing crisis pregnancy centers on their platform. And so he was like, I'm gonna sue them because this is Texas. So Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton,
don't worry because he is on the case. He is going to open up an investigation into media matters for potential fraudulent activity himself only having been recently as in like a few months ago, cleared up corruption and problem activity himself.
Keep that in mind, he.
Says he's just the guy to go after them. He if there's one thing he knows. It's fraudulent activity.
He was like, oh, oh, frauds and scams. That's my forte baby, I'm on it.
He said.
We are examining the issue closely to ensure that the public has not been deceived by the schemes of radical left being organizations who would like nothing more than to limit freedom by reducing participation in the public square.
Oh my god, so yeah.
I mean, like, it doesn't surprise me that he's pulling a little stunt sticking up for Elon Musk game, Reckon, that's game. Like He's like, oh, scams and stunts, scams and stunts, right or right, right, let's do this.
Is there some sort of like Texas connection here that I don't know about. I don't know, like I'm giving him too much credit. I guess it's not like that kind of legitimate thing. It's it's a little stunt.
Yeah, it's a little stunt.
So Twitter assuming Media Matters for defamation, saying that they lost revenue when the brands left the platform. However, most of these brands did not say it was media matters as report as the reason why they left. Lionsgate specifically said that it was Elon Musk's anti Semitic tweet was the reason why they left. So this is really just like classic Elon blaming everyone else for his own behavior
when that behavior causes a problem. He did the same thing earlier this year when he launched a lawsuit against the Center for Countering Digital Hey for publishing a report about how hate speech was flourishing on the platform since Musk took over. Like, this is just not how good leaders lead, Like blaming everyone and passing the buck to avoid responsibility.
Yeah, I mean, just continuously suing every organization that talks about rampant hate speech on Twitter kind of gives the impression that he's not really that concerned with hate speech on Twitter.
No, And I think that's what bugs me so much about it. When Linda Yakarino is talking about like, oh, brands, like it's safe to be here, your content won't be next to Nazi pictures, It's like that's the only way they can conceptualize how a platform can be can feel healthy is that if brands feel good to show up there. I just think it's like the wrong metric, and it really makes me wonder if they meaningfully care what the platform is like, do they really care that hate speeches there?
Do they really care that, like, you know, there are slurs and conspiracy theories and anti semitism, Like I would argue, no, I think the only thing they care about is our brands there, because they're ninety percent of our revenue. And speaking of Linda Yakarno, you know, we've talked about her a lot on the podcast. I'm kind of fascinated by her in a lot of ways. I see her as
this sort of very intriguing figure. Forbes actually reported that Lindiakrino's advertising colleagues have been texting her trying to be like, honey, you need to get out of Twitter to save her own reputation, because they are worried that she's going to tank her own personal brand by being associated with an anti Semite, racist, misogynist like Elon Musk.
Marketing industry veteran.
Luke Pascalis said that he texted Linda Yakrino, and he told CNN she thinks quitting is failing. She believes that she can mother Elon Musk into someone who could be respected by the advertising community, and that chip has definitely sailed, But she's not going to come off the mechanical bull without all of us telling her it's time to go. And I believe that there's been a ground swell of a lot of people, such as myself, saying save yourself.
So I'm curious, like, did you know who Linda Yakarino was before she became CEO of Twitter? Was she like a known person that people knew about?
I knew who she was.
I think that she was definitely a known high level figure in media advertising, like she was a big wig at NBC, But I don't know that like your average person and be like, oh, Linda Yakarino, of course. Also, she's someone who is like speaks publicly a lot, Like That's how I knew of her. Was like, she's someone who like would go to conferences and like in public speaking a lot.
Yeah, I guess that makes sense.
I had never heard of her before she took over as CEO at Twitter, And I'm continuously puzzled by I guess the benefit of doubt that people give her, or like the good will that people seem to have towards her, because like I only knew her as coming in to try to whitewash the tanking Twitter brand as Elon like rode the sinking ship down. Every statement she makes just seems like sad, like, oh there's you know, don't worry, there's ninety percent less Nazi stuff now.
Yeah, I mean, I give Linda Yacharino no goodwill.
We said this when when she first was announced. If in this day and age, you.
Are willingly deciding to leave your job and to sign up to work alongside Elon Muskat Twitter, you know exactly what you're getting into you like, there is no world where you can be like.
I didn't know or I thought I could fix him. You knew, we all saw you made a choice.
I'm just really curious what her inner monologue is like and how she feels about how it's going. Her tweets are absurd, like when Elon Musk is like tweeting anti Semitic stuff and it's like making headlines. She'll literally be tweeting like does anyone like beverages? I love beverages, not that, but basically that, you know what I mean, Like the most inane stuff, And it's it's just like it's hard to not I don't know, maybe it's maybe I'm alone
in this. It's hard for me to not be fascinated by her.
Yeah, you're you're not alone there, I guess, I guess I get it. You know, I also find her interesting. I don't really know why though to that.
Point, you know, lawsuit, don't no lawsuit. This is all bad for Twitter's economic outlook, all of the verification in Twitter Blue subscriptions are not really paying off. Advertising is still ninety percent of Twitter's revenue model. According to tech Crunch. Before any of this even happened, Twitter's ad revenues were already forecasted to be declining by fifty four point four percent from twenty twenty two to twenty twenty three, a pretty sizeable drop. But I wanted to add that for context.
But I actually don't think that like how much money Twitter is making for how or whether it can wo brands and keep brands like is the ultimate sign of
health for the platform. And I really want to caution folks about making it seem like those are the only metrics that matter, because the real marker of the health of a platform, in my book, is whether or not people who can actually show up there and whether it feels good when they do, right, Like, are you able to use the platform to find accurate and timely relevant information about what's going on in the world. Can you find community there? Like do you feel relatively safe showing
up there? These are things that make an online space worth showing up to. And it feels like more and more that space in Twitter is gone and perhaps not coming back. But we all deserve to have healthy digital platforms, Like I truly believe that this is something that we deserve and should be able to expect from our digital media landscape.
Yeah, it's it's what people want, you know, community information, not to see a bunch of Hitler stuff.
Yeah, baseline not Hitler stuff like that's like, can we get that?
That would be great, that would be good, Like we.
Joked, but you were saying.
A couple of weeks ago, somebody like called you a racial slur, like not cool, not.
Just a racial slur, a brand new racial slur that I had never heard before. I was like, I think this is a racial slur. I had to google it and I was like, oh wow, I got a new one.
Who knew it was a new one, not an antiquated one. They're coming up with new ones now.
They're coming up with new ones and they're doing it on Twitter, so I want to know, like, how are you feeling about being on Twitter?
I did a whole kind of like.
Emotional deep dive about my wrestling with my choice to stay or leave the platform. But tell me how you're feeling, Like are you on Twitter?
Have you left Twitter? Are you still on? But like using it? Last? Let us know? I really want to know.
You can hit us up at hello at tangoity dot com and thanks so much for listening. Got a story about an interesting thing in tech, or just want to say hi. You can reach us at hello at tangody dot com. You can also find transcripts for today's episode at tengody dot com. There Are No Girls on the Internet was created by me Bridget Todd. It's a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed.
Creative.
Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer. Tari Harrison is our producer and sound engineer. Michael Almado is our contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget Todd. If you want to help us grow, rate and review us on Apple podcasts. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts,