[HN Gopher] Context to Twitter's 2023 advertisers issues
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Context to Twitter's 2023 advertisers issues
Author : watwut
Score : 87 points
Date : 2022-11-05 17:46 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| cavisne wrote:
| I think this will all work out fine in the end, the unique thing
| with twitter is the exact people who lead these boycott
| campaigns... are all completely obsessed with using twitter. The
| author of this thread is a prime example.
|
| And the ads are placed on the feed not on a piece of content
| (like the issues youtube was having).
|
| Elon should just deploy a "woke bubble" option where your ad is
| sandwiched between posts from two liberal elites. The audience
| would still be broad as just as many people follow these people
| to laugh at them as to support them.
| stalfosknight wrote:
| I look forward to the demise of the twin sewers of disinformation
| and privacy destruction Meta and Twitter. I think people forget
| the internet got along just fine before these companies existed.
| singingfish wrote:
| I liked facebook in the early days of popular adoption as it
| got the normal people I know using the internet more like I had
| been for a long time. But it went wrong after that and it's an
| platform that's lost a great deal of its value.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| Unfortunately, in the unlikely event of these two companies
| completely disappearing, there'll be plenty of others as bad or
| worse to take their place.
| freewizard wrote:
| This is quite basic 101 for ad/media. It'll be surprising if no
| one ever texted Elon Musk about it since May.
| kristianbrigman wrote:
| On the other hand... it seems that Elon's long-term plan is to
| try to create a social media platform where the users are the
| customers instead of the product... that seems like it would have
| to rely less on advertising revenue to do that.
|
| I am not sure how that will play out but I wish him well (as
| someone who is not a major user of most social media)...
| heartbreak wrote:
| How many $8/mo users does he need to pay the billion per year
| in interest he saddled Twitter with?
| phillipcarter wrote:
| I'm not convinced he has any real long-term plans, considering
| how he tried so hard to get out of his ridiculously high offer.
| Imnimo wrote:
| >Media buyers did ask those questions. Twitter had zero answers
| or assurances, the presentation imploded and ended shockingly
| early.
|
| I'm very curious what sort of questions these were.
| CharlesW wrote:
| Here's some good background:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/01/opinion/elon-musk-twitter...
| (archive: https://archive.ph/IZp4P)
|
| Elon himself said that Twitter "cannot become a free-for-all
| hellscape", and so advertisers want to understand exactly what
| the plan is to avoid that given that (for example) Elon laid
| off 75% of the moderation team.
|
| Pre-Elon, leadership spent lots of cycles building trust and
| confidence with advertisers, involving them in policy
| discussions, etc. That is not only no longer happening, but it
| appears that Elon is blocking people who are asking tough
| questions.
|
| https://twitter.com/loupas/status/1588599808587345921
|
| For anyone confused about motivations, this isn't about
| "wokeism" but is straight capitalism. In the same way that
| airlines don't want their ads to be placed next to coverage of
| an air disaster, advertisers and agencies need assurances that
| Twitter isn't on the road to becoming a cesspool, and that
| their brand/ads won't appear near harmful content.
| cauthon wrote:
| > In the same way that airlines don't want their ads to be
| placed next to coverage of an air disaster, advertisers and
| agencies need assurances that Twitter isn't on the road to
| becoming a cesspool, and that their brand/ads won't appear
| near harmful content.
|
| Yep. How many major companies do you recall advertising on
| 4chan?
| [deleted]
| marvin wrote:
| Hmmm, wonder if it's a freedom of speech issue if a coalition
| of companies effectively prevent public discussion of issues
| that might significantly upset the status quo?
|
| Loud, blatant lies that are repeated by authority figures
| continuously is one thing. That this is bad is almost
| universally agreed on. But does this advertiser worry really
| stop at that?
|
| I think this is a very interesting question, hitting at the
| heart of the Twitter controversy. Advertisers have an
| _incredibly strong_ influence on contemporary discourse;
| their concerns influence almost all publicly-visible
| discussion, opinion and debate. The attention economy,
| eyeball-and-click-hunting is just the tip of the spear, and
| this dominates almost every public communication platform in
| the world.
|
| Elon Musk and his $44 billion <<fuck this shit>> purchase is
| the only significant challenge to this model. It will
| _obviously_ upset the advertisers; it's tautological.
|
| Maybe the result is that it won't work, but if it does,
| Twitter will be the only public communications platform that
| isn't very heavily influenced by advertisers' interests.
| MonkeyMalarky wrote:
| He who pays the fiddler, calls the tune. Want to broadcast
| whatever you want? Fine, pay for it. Want advertisers to
| subsidize your costs? Don't be surprised that their money
| comes with strings attached.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| _" Elon laid off 75% of the moderation team."_
|
| Did he?
|
| According to this BBC article[1], _" Yoel Roth, Twitter's
| Head of Safety & Integrity, said that most of the more than
| 2,000 content moderators working on "front-line review" were
| not impacted"_ by the firings.
|
| More details here[2], where Roth says _" More than 80% of our
| incoming content moderation volume was completely unaffected
| by this access change. The daily volume of moderation actions
| we take stayed steady through this period."_
|
| [1] - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63524219
|
| [2] - https://nitter.net/yoyoel/status/1588657229628321792
| snoopy_telex wrote:
| Wait. So of the ~3500 employees left at the company, 2000
| are content moderators?!
| majewsky wrote:
| Well yeah, what else about Twitter would require that
| much raw manpower?
| detaro wrote:
| I wouldn't be surprised if a good chunk of them aren't
| Twitter employees, but subcontractors somewhere. At least
| that's what plenty other social media sites do.
| peanuty1 wrote:
| Isn't content moderation the biggest challenge at
| Twitter?
| sg47 wrote:
| it's outsourced to Infosys or TCS
| Yoric wrote:
| I assume we'll know final numbers once the dust settles,
| but that sounds not nearly as bad as assumed.
|
| However, my personal experience of Twitter suggests that it
| remains an open air sewer, which tends to indicate that the
| content moderation team was already severely under-staffed.
| I suspect that it's even more true for non-English
| language.
|
| So, even if _only_ 15% of the content moderators have been
| laid off, this doesn 't bode well for the future health of
| conversations on the platform.
|
| Regardless, thanks for the sources!
|
| update: Reading through the source once again, 15% of the
| T&S team was laid off but we don't have numbers for the
| number of content moderators who were laid off. I had
| assumed that content moderators were part of the T&S team,
| but that may not be true.
| rajin444 wrote:
| > this isn't about "wokeism"
|
| I'm not sure how you can say that when "woke capitalism" is
| exactly what we have today. Major brands are downstream of
| culture, and woke culture is dominant. Cesspool, as you're
| using it, is synonymous with "not woke".
|
| You're right that it is capitalism, you're wrong that
| capitalism isn't downstream of culture.
| cma wrote:
| Antisemitism and other overt racism go beyond "not woke."
| [deleted]
| pmoriarty wrote:
| Not to mention endless calls to violence, some of which
| are actually acted on by these "not woke" people.
| cvwright wrote:
| Agreed that this is a problem.
|
| But there have been calls to violence on Twitter for a
| long time. Just in Portland, we had 100 days of street
| violence, a prolonged attempt to burn down a federal
| courthouse, various attacks on the city mayor, and the
| attempted murder of a gay immigrant journalist. It wasn't
| hard at the time to find Tweets planning and celebrating
| all of this stuff.
|
| If it's truly about violence, why are the advertisers
| just now getting cold feet?
| LudwigNagasena wrote:
| This is so vague it literally clarifies nothing.
| dragontamer wrote:
| Twitter normally sells $600 million to $900 million in ads at
| this event.
|
| This year, Twitter got nearly none at all. Therefore, Elon gets
| angry.
| imustbeevil wrote:
| They pre-sell ads every year. They fucked it up for next year.
| It was a very easy read.
| LudwigNagasena wrote:
| Yeah, that was already obvious from the Elon's tweet. That
| piece adds nothing except for some trivia about a special
| event for advertisers.
| sosodev wrote:
| It clarifies that advertisers aren't being persuaded by
| crazy activists like Elon is claiming..
| dragontamer wrote:
| The $600 million figure is specific and new to me.
|
| This puts Twitters losses over the next year at nearly
| $2,100 million by my count. It's no wonder that Elon feels
| the need to fire everybody.
| watwut wrote:
| It was not obvious from Elon tweet that the lack of sales
| already happened back in May. And apparently many other
| people thought he is raging over events of last week only.
| Twitter issues are larger then that and started sooner.
| Firing of account managers or blocking ad buyers on Twitter
| were just last step in issues.
|
| The special industry event where many companies sell and
| buy ads a year in advance at discount is the context I did
| not had and many people did not had.
| russellbeattie wrote:
| If the ads produce results, then the advertisers will be back as
| soon as the dust settles. This isn't even a question. Businesses
| follow the money. If Coke doesn't advertise, Pepsi will happily
| pick up the slack, etc. It's only a question of short term losses
| until Musk learns to shut his mouth.
|
| If it turns out ad money is just being flushed down the drain
| because most of the views are in fact bots, as I suspect, then
| Twitter has a whole other challenge.
| darkteflon wrote:
| Huh, it's almost like he has no fucking idea what he's doing.
| qull wrote:
| Is this considered a constructive comment on HN?
| [deleted]
| rolenthedeep wrote:
| Thread:
| https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1588696157794242560.html
|
| Why do people still link to Twitter instead of of nitter?
| Twitter's ui is the definition of dark patterns and antagonizm if
| you don't have an account
| makeitrain wrote:
| Thanks.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| > Why do people still link to Twitter instead of of nitter?
|
| Because Twitter is the original source. When people start
| publishing on nitter instead, we can start linking there.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| I always link to nitter's mirror of the twitter thread in
| question, just because it doesn't require javascript to view.
| stevewatson301 wrote:
| You could add a user script that redirects from twitter.com to
| nitter.net or any of the alternative Twitter frontends.
| spoils19 wrote:
| Agreed, I find it irking that GP is attempting to force
| others to follow his own standards. So much for free speech.
| nullc wrote:
| Asking, encouraging, and highlightning the negatives of not
| doing his way isn't forcing in any way at all.
| spoils19 wrote:
| What evidence is there of dark patterns or antagonizm?
| CharlesW wrote:
| I opened the post link in an incognito window and it looked
| fine. The main difference was a footer asking me to log in or
| sign up. Maybe all the stuff you remember was removed?
| MSM wrote:
| I have to be very careful how far I scroll down when reading
| threads. If I scroll a little beyond the last reply, I get a
| "See what's happening" full splash screen. Extremely
| frustrating when you have these X/? Posts and have no idea
| when the actual end is without checking for existence of the
| next.
| Xylakant wrote:
| Try scrolling down. Once you barely touch the bottom of the
| thread you'll see an overlay that you can't get rid of. Or at
| least I did.
| CharlesW wrote:
| Ah, thank you Xylakant and MSM. I don't see that, probably
| because of NextDNS (a cloud-based Pi-hole+).
| jsnell wrote:
| You can get rid of the overlay by clicking "login" and then
| clicking "x" in the upper left corner rather than logging
| in.
| [deleted]
| pvg wrote:
| _Please don 't complain about tangential annoyances--things
| like article or website formats, name collisions, or back-
| button breakage. They're too common to be interesting._
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| but, honestly, does it really surprise anybody?
|
| I'm quite sure Musk was expecting this outcome, despite the PR
| said otherwise.
|
| It's like complaining that Trump failed to make America great
| again, like that was really his plan.
|
| Or that, in my Country, Berlusconi did not deliver the "liberal
| revolution" he promised.
|
| They are not there to make anything great, their great plan is to
| boost their ego, fix their problems, skip jail, and nothing else.
| [deleted]
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| Oh, so many different issues.
|
| Big businesses have an interest in stability (business as usual
| is predictable) and in being left leaning (pretend to care
| about people, lobby politicians to lobby for policies that
| entrench you in a position of power), it's to be expected they
| won't like change and that they won't like Elon.
|
| I don't think Elon cares too much tbh, he's obviously going to
| pivot Twitter into something like Line in China which does
| everything. I'm half expecting payments with crypto soonish.
|
| Trump biggest mistake was not to decrease public spending. You
| can't really scream at big government while doing exactly what
| your opponents are doing. He was decent policy wise and was
| positive for the economy. Overall he did much better than I
| expected out of a reality show contestant.
|
| Berlusconi did some good things policy wise but ended up facing
| a system that doesn't want to change. Italy doesn't have any
| hopes of redemption. The government is designed so that radical
| change is impossible (it's different in the US). Italy will
| keep on piling on debt until the government completely chokes
| the entire population and the country collapses.
|
| Trump and Berlusconi share a lot. Elon is crazy in his own way
| and pretty different.
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| > Berlusconi did some good things policy wise but ended up
| facing a system that doesn't want to change.
|
| as Italian: Berlusconi is a convicted felon who got into
| politics to fix his problems with the criminal law and mostly
| succeeded. he was the first one not wanting to change
| anything in Italy. He basically stalled my Country for 25
| years, because that system got him where he is today. Only a
| fool would kill the golden goose.
|
| Trump is trying to do the same.
|
| it's not a judgment on their political affiliation, which I
| oppose, but that's not the issue here.
|
| the issue is they are very bad men, with very bad ideals, not
| surprisingly both of them admire dictators and totalitarian
| leaders.
|
| Berlusconi is still bragging, still today, about his close
| friendship with Putin.
|
| Musk is just not a political leader, yet, but as a
| influencial personality in the tech space his behaviour has
| been not very dissimilar from the other two.
|
| Using his influence to convince people to support things that
| would only benefit him? check
|
| Bullying competitors? (via twitter) check
|
| Bullying critics? (via twitter) check
|
| addressing other leaders like a tugh in a street fight? check
|
| seriously, this happened for real! (facepalm emoji)
|
| https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1503327421839417344
|
| etc etc
|
| Having said that: one thing is gonna be interesting.
|
| If Elon Musk succeeds to relieve Twitter from his reliance on
| ads and convince enough people to actually pay for the
| service, making it a _real_ product, that would make him a
| great entrepreneur with very bad manners, but still a bad
| human who is gambling with people 's lives and careers just
| to prove a point.
| enragedcacti wrote:
| > Trump biggest mistake was not to decrease public spending.
| You can't really scream at big government while doing exactly
| what your opponents are doing.
|
| Of course you can, it has been the republican modus operandi
| for 40+ years now:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jude_Wanniski#The_Two_Santa_Cl.
| ..
|
| https://www.commondreams.org/views/2009/01/26/two-santa-
| clau...
| iLoveOncall wrote:
| Is it that big of a deal?
|
| Apparently it represents only 10-15% of the ads for a year, so
| just a bit more than a month.
|
| Not only that but the fact that it isn't pre-sold due to
| uncertainty does not mean that it won't be sold later, during the
| year, when (if) advertisers see that Musk's Twitter isn't that
| awful after all.
|
| I also imagine that the budget of advertisers that doesn't go to
| Twitter doesn't necessarily or fully go to other platforms.
|
| Advertisers that wanted to reach Twitter users in 2022 most
| likely still want to reach Twitter users in 2023, so I'm not
| convinced that they won't end up giving that money to Twitter
| anyway during the year.
|
| I wouldn't invest a single dollar in Twitter at the moment (we
| can't anymore anyway), but this honestly doesn't seem to me like
| something apocalyptic for them.
| noahtallen wrote:
| I think part of why it feels like a big deal is because Elon is
| making it a big deal. (E.g. he has been tweeting and making a
| big deal about advertisers pulling out)
| pvg wrote:
| It's 15% to 20% of revenue that you get to lock up in advance.
| It's a big deal.
| iLoveOncall wrote:
| Read beyond the first line next time you answer.
| fxtentacle wrote:
| Wow, isn't this a material adverse event that would allow Musk to
| renegotiate the price?
| watwut wrote:
| No. But, it probably cemented twitter decision to insist on
| selling it. Advertisers being unsure and afraid in between time
| was know risk (based on what I read about it).
| mmastrac wrote:
| I'm pretty sure it's too late for that.
| wodenokoto wrote:
| I find the most surprising thing in this thread that there
| apparently is an event that sells billions of dollars
| advertisement space each year. I thought all this happened on
| online auctions.
|
| I wanna know more about New Fronts.
| CharlesW wrote:
| If you've heard of TV "upfronts"1, NewFronts2 are the same
| thing with a focus on digital content. They're marketplaces
| that bring together brands, creators, advertisers, marketers,
| and distributors.
|
| 1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upfront_(advertising)
|
| 2 https://www.digitas.com/en-hk/services/newfront
| lumost wrote:
| If you wanted to buy 10 billion of twitter, you wouldn't use
| robinhood.
|
| Same deal for advertisers. The premium buys and the big space
| goes through heavy negotiations (but might be rtb'd for
| execution as needed)
| ISL wrote:
| It makes sense that there should be a futures market for both
| big buyers and big sellers.
|
| Everyone wants at least a little predictability...
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