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Dougie Undersub
Dougie Undersub
1 year ago

As we saw with the launch of GB News, these large advertising companies seem quite happy to adopt the role of global arbiters of acceptable opinions.
I’ve trained myself to screen out all advertising, whatever the medium. I literally don’t notice it anymore. Perhaps we could all do it.

Steve Murray
Steve Murray
1 year ago

Indeed. I either record programmes on tv and skip the ads, or just pause for a short while and skip the ads that way. I find them literally intolerable to watch.

Online, a decent free ad-blocker works in most instances, and can easily be turned off/on for any important sites that don’t work with a blocker. Using a blocker can slow some sites down too but it’s a small.price to pay.

Rory Ferguson
Rory Ferguson
1 year ago
Reply to  Steve Murray

uBlock Origin if anyone is wondering.

Peter Johnson
Peter Johnson
1 year ago

Some of these advertisers are quite vulnerable to a backlash. In the US the right wing is much more mainstream and organized than other countries. So – for example – Disney lost millions of subscriptions over unwisely preaching about voting requirements (the horror of asking for ID). While some manufacturers are hard to target due to the number of products – others like General Motors should be careful.

Peter Joy
Peter Joy
1 year ago
Reply to  Peter Johnson

Well, speaking for myself, Unilever, Gilette, Paypal, Barclays and a host of other neoliberal Corporates are still paying a few pounds every month for their support for extreme Left political causes.
Almost every ad I see now – TV, online or poster – is so jammed with sickening and predictable woke tropes, the only effect is to make me make a note never to buy from them ever again.

Geoff Cooper
Geoff Cooper
1 year ago
Reply to  Peter Joy

Yep, me too. Nothing Gillette again. Never – ever.

Richard Calhoun
Richard Calhoun
1 year ago

When those using twitter without a blue tick are faced with having to decide whether to subscribe I believe many will do so if it’s only $8 per month … it is an excellent platform to access all your #MSM.
It’s the route to independence from the Corporates who seem to wish to control the way we lead our lives
I wish Mr Musk good luck!

N Forster
N Forster
1 year ago

Well, we now need a free speech replacement for Paypal, a business Musk understands well. So becoming a payment app would be great. I’d sign up now that I’ve cancelled Paypal.

J Bryant
J Bryant
1 year ago

yet many users have found themselves rejected with no explanation despite meeting the explicit requirements of the verification process.
I’d guess the legacy Twitter employees are trying to hamstring Musk’s revenue source.

Aaron James
Aaron James
1 year ago

This is nothing to do with Elon and his goal for Twitter –

Twitter is to become his ‘Everything’ Site.

Pay your bills, give a couple bucks to your kid, to a friend, get some guy to mow your grass, call a taxi, rent a lakeside cottage, buy car insurance, have a family get together in an app, set an appointment for the car oil change, give a homeless guy a dollar, look for a date….

He plans for twitter to be your phone’s interface with the world. The fossil Alphabet, Meta… they are to become the Xerox and Kodak….It is going to be Musk World – and Twitter is his play to do it. A nightmare plan…but one who is ready – the Nu world is like ‘Highlander’ at the end there can only be One.

Peter Johnson
Peter Johnson
1 year ago
Reply to  Aaron James

Yes – he has already publicly talked about an everything app called “X”. There definitely is a market for a politically neutral payment app. I just cancelled PayPal due to their conceit that my politics are any of their business. We hear that Visa and Mastercard are being asked to start tracking and reporting on gun purchases, carbon footprint, etc. That is terrifying.

Peter Joy
Peter Joy
1 year ago
Reply to  Aaron James

All the features you describe are available on other platforms already. Why does this become a techno-dystopia nightmare only when someone who isn’t a Neoliberal Rainbow LGBTQPZMAP++?? owns the business?

albert lucientes
albert lucientes
1 year ago

He is just so the wrong kind of person to own a company like Twitter. He paid a fortune for it. Was literally forced to buy it, bc he makes dumb and impulsive moves sometimes. Selling blue ticks will turn them into a badge of how dumb people are and defeat their entire purpose. Thanks, but I rather give $100. a year to some homeless family than to pay for digital flair to prove its really me. Its as absurd as how he bought the company. Now anyone can buy one and parody anyone else. He’ll lure some of those advertisers back. Obviously, as he has no problem with censorship provided the person being censored is someone he wants silenced. He’s shown that again and again. Listen to the Project Veritas Zoom call, at abt 5 mins in, he starts speaking about ‘free speech vs limited reach’ – That ‘ltd reach’ means echo chambering, i.e, censoring content they dont want getting out. He has too much of a VC mindset to run a company like Twitter. So, he’ll fold to the establishment, and turn it into a crappy place to work. With what he paid, there must be some massive interest payments. All I can see him doing is finding ever more ‘creative’ (destructive) ways to monetize and monetize some more. Maybe a paywall? An annual subscription? And people will just stop using it. The censorship we were all against will persist, one way or the other. Which is why speaking out individually is what’s most important. No oligarch is coming to rescue us.

Richard Calhoun
Richard Calhoun
1 year ago

Who are you to decide what ‘kind’ of person should own twitter … if he’s got the $ and there is a willing seller who’s to say no?

Doug Pingel
Doug Pingel
1 year ago

On a public patform there is always, in extremis, a need for some form of censorship unless you (and that means YOU!) are willing to underwrite the platform owners liabilty for libel, etc. There will always be the angry fool who oversteps the mark and there will always be (even in the UK) the extreme litiginous (creep, pr1k, etc) or even just someone who fancies a payday, instructing council.

Peter Johnson
Peter Johnson
1 year ago

Jeff Bezos and his counterparts at Apple and Google decided to destroy Parler at the request of the Democrats – so they are much worse. At least if Elon turns evil like them – it will be an amusing impulsive kind of evil – not the plodding boring suck up to progressive politicians kind of evil we have grown used to in Big Tech.

Jerry Carroll
Jerry Carroll
1 year ago

When were you fired by Twitter, or was it Meta?