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Comment by COGlory | Hacker News Reader

So my cereal company is getting involved in politics now?

I'm not Elon Musk fan, but he is pissing off a lot of people and institutions I don't care for.

They are pausing ad spend on Twitter because they don’t want to be involved in politics.

It genuinely surprises me how many Musk defenders don’t get this. I understand the principle his no-moderation policies come from but the reality is that Twitter is going to become (even more of) a political cesspit. No brand is going to want to be associated with it.

It's going to become 4chan-lite.

There's just too much risk in investing into a platform that will allow anyone to post unmoderated content that corporations just want out of Twitter altogether.

Twitter was politically neutral before a few days ago? This seems more like a reaction to the Current Thing, which is "Elon man bad."

They've replaced Emmanual Orangestein with Elonnuel Goldstein.

What was Twitter last week? What was Twitter when they banned a sitting president of the United States?

It's only now political because Elon owns it?

You mean a sitting president who flagrantly violated their TOS? If anything it was political that they waited so long to ban him, not that they banned him when they did.

Exactly. Contrary to Thailand for example, the president does not get special privileges from private organsiations.

People who ask for that are beyond the idea of democracy

Your cereal brand cares about profits like all companies so it doing what it thinks is best to not lose those. If being on the new twitter was more profitable in the long run then they would stay.

> So my cereal company is getting involved in politics now?

Then using your logic, Musk (and by extension Tesla, SpaceX) are also getting involved in politics? Why are you upset on the one hand (cereal) and not the other (Musk)?

Well for starters, I don't own a Tesla and don't use SpaceX. So they aren't really on my radar. I do, however, eat cereal.

Why would not wanting to spend your ads on Twitter be political. The place is a brand risk, only Elon wants you to think this is about owning the libs

This is how facists work- they frame anyone’s dissenting speech and actions as politically opposed.

> So my cereal company is getting involved in politics now?

Have you been in cryogenic deep sleep the last decade? This is every single Big Corp now. No matter how you stand on these issues, but if subsidising abortion, flying the rainbow flag, enforcing affirmative action and supporting immigration isn't political, then what is?

I mean, big corps have been deep into politics since forever. It's called lobbying, and they all do it.

Lobbying is "influencing power for your own advantage". This is the opposite, its submitting to a certain agenda, some of them clearly against their own interests.

Ok, I disagree that it's against their own interests. At the very least, I'm sure the people making these decisions believe it is in their own interests. But that's really beside the point. The point is, big business has always been political. I can't think of any coherent definition of politics that doesn't include "influencing power for your own advantage."

I don’t know what to tell you man. Support for LGB rights, abortion, and immigration are all popular in the US. If you exclude rural baby boomers, a demographic no advertiser cares about (except My Pillow and emergency meal prep companies), all of those things are very popular.

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