Volkswagen tells brands to pause paid advertising on Twitter
reuters.com
reuters.com
It definitely isn't great for Twitter as the auto industry is a large industry, but dont think this will be the thing that makes or break Twitter. I don't think aerospace companies even register in terms of online advertising dollars.
Interesting point.
We are closely monitoring the situation
Monitoring it for what? I'm genuinely not understanding why Twitter would be boycotted (at least yet)
If the dust settles and nothing has changed then they'll almost surely come back.
The specificity seems out of place and smells of "AI" generation.
Any screen reader users who can share if this is helpful or just noise.
> The specificity seems out of place and smells of "AI" generation.
It sounds more like a stock image description, generated from basic archival metadata. They have photojournalists and a photo archive, and I'm certain they're very careful to record date and location for all their photos to make archival use possible.
Reuters also does a lot of very pithy company reporting like this, I wonder if they collect catalogs of generic images related to this-or-that company to "illustrate" those articles. I bet there's some SEO need for it (e.g. an article with no image will be displayed in a far less attention-grabbing way). The second image of this three-paragraph article is a shot of logo on Twitter's headquarters from April.
Elon someone who has done more for society than 99.9% of people yet says a few controversial things every now and then so people hate him. I know 100% every person has said or done things that is considered not inline with the narrative.
As long as people aren't clearly threatening each other i see no reason cancel culture should exist. We have banks canceling peoples bank accounts because of a few words things are out of control. If you're not a perfect human being and follow the narrative 100% then you are removed from society.
Builds cars to cement the status quo of the most inefficient and destructive mean of transport there is.
Hypes up futuristic potential, yet unrealistic long-distance transport to derail high-speed rail investments and projects.
Works on building his vision of space exploration which will become a huge environmental and technical liability for future generations when following his envisioned scale and goals.
But.
- The environmental problem with electric cars is undoubtedly due to the batteries, both the manufacturing and the fact that the cars are much heavier as a result. But the idea that without electric cars more people would choose for alternative modes of transport is a bit dumb. The cars are inherently luxury vehicles, and in many places, the infrastructure isn't there for a low-car/car-free lifestyle.
- You don't need hyperloop to derail high-speed rail investments and projects. Simple bureaucratic ineptitude and red tape will do that. Like that story of how SNCF pulled out of California and went and built trains in Morocco instead, which was cheaper and more efficient.
- What's a huge technical liability is a bloated govt space agency that takes decades to deliver projects at 100x the cost of what a commercial vendor can do, while all the people who originally built the tech are retired or about to. And all that cost isn't just money, it represents an enormous amount of time and resources spent. Chastizing SpaceX for rejuvenating the space industry seems pretty ridiculous.
It seems like you're just taking Musk as a convenient target to blame, because he should spend his resources more "wisely", but each of the examples you cite is actually due to an enormous systemic ineptitude elsewhere.
Yes, free speech allows cancel culture to exist, but that in itself doesn't make it good.
Yes, we call that a free society. People have the rights of freedom of expression and freedom of association, and are allowed to exercise those rights without government intermediation. Those rights even allow people to try to influence other people's behavior, or put public pressure on them in order to attempt to enforce social norms or push a political agenda outside the realm of voting or a court of law.
>Yes, free speech allows cancel culture to exist, but that in itself doesn't make it good.
So you don't believe in free speech, you just believe in freedom for the speech you agree with.
If cancel culture is freedom of speech, that would imply that KiwiFarms was also freedom of speech. Both are just "exercising their rights to try to influence other people's behavior".
Cancel culture is short-sighted and influenced by sensationalism more than actual facts. It has an extreme chilling effect on the society. Truth is sometimes controversial at first, and cancel culture rids the society of those controversial thoughts that may sometimes be true. Ignoring the effects because "free speech means anyone can do whatever" will eventually lead to a society where there de-facto will be no free speech, at least no free speech which goes against the narrative.
To have their freedom of speech stifled? Fairly ironic considering your comment:
> So you don't believe in free speech, you just believe in freedom for the speech you agree with.
(Yes, yes, I'm aware they weren't arrested - they were just banned off the internet. Legally speaking, you're in the right.)
Anyways, yes, freedom of speech allows cancel culture to exist. Your argument seems to be along the lines of "whatever happens, happens" - as in, majority is right; if people decide to cancel you, you probably deserved it, and your free speech wasn't stifled. And it wasn't - US-legally speaking.
But I disagree with that notion, considering how cancel culture can cause damage comparable to being arrested. But that's just my opinion, eh?
Yes, I disagree with the publishing of speech that includes harassment, doxxing and driving people to suicide out of prejudice and hatred, and I believe Kiwifarms was doing real and legitimate harm, and that businesses and society have the right to disassociate from them. I'm not a free speech absolutist, you caught me.
>Your argument seems to be along the lines of "whatever happens, happens" - as in, majority is right; if people decide to cancel you, you probably deserved it, and your free speech wasn't stifled. And it wasn't - US-legally speaking.
No, that isn't actually my argument at all. My argument is that society has to have limits to what it tolerates otherwise the intolerant inevitably take over, and that it's legitimate for the people (less so government) to limit freedom of speech in some cases, if only by choosing not to associate with it. Can this possibly be used for evil? Yes - one could (and people have, ad nauseum) argue the same principle applies to society limiting things like feminist, civil rights and pro LGBT speech. Is it, in all cases, an unqualified evil? No.
One cannot apply universal moral qualifiers to freedoms. Consequences can be justified in some cases and unjustified in others. Freedoms can do good in some contexts, and harm in others. "Cancel culture" isn't always simply a frothing angry mob, and speech rejected by society isn't always uncomfortable truth the system is too afraid to hear. Sometimes you're just an asshole and people show you the door. You seem to think that's a crime, but it's just life.
"But who gets to decide what speech is harmful and what is good?" I can hear you typing, because this site is hell and we're cursed to reiterate the same futile conversation over and over again until the end of time, and the answer is "everyone." I have my personal beliefs, you have yours. My culture has its beliefs, yours has its own. The law proscribes limits, as do private platforms. The law can be just, and the law can be unjust. Platforms may be biased and inconsistent. Yes, that is messy, and imperfect, and subjective, and prone to error and controversy, and we will probably never agree on where the lines should be placed, but at the end of the day we can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Isn't this exactly what cancel culture does?
> "But who gets to decide what speech is harmful and what is good?" I can hear you typing, because this site is hell and we're cursed to reiterate the same futile conversation over and over again until the end of time, and the answer is "everyone."
So - again - you believe that the majority is always right?
If one person in a boardroom says Elon is this or Kanye is this we can't do business with him and if you don't agree with me then you are labeled as them. So everyone falls in line out of fear of being cancelled.
You really think Adidas wanted to lose 40% of there revenue because of a tweet. They don't care what Kanye tweeted they would keep him if they knew they wouldn't get cancelled.
It's detrimental to society because it is just the beginning and will be used as a tool for people to get what they want which isn't always going to be good things in the future.
What ever happen to business is business. It's now turned into companies running social justice campaigns out if fear. I mean really were talking about things that are not that big of a deal.
Yes, peoples actions should have consequences, that is the whole point of free speech. Bring speech forward, and reward speech we support and discourage speech we don't, and let the market of ideas decide. Do you not believe in free speech and free markets? The market of ideas?
It's also entirely possible that Adidas decided that the overhead of dealing with public backlash + the fact that Kanye himself is unstable meant that the brand was no longer a long-term investment, and given that understanding, they made the call to cut it cleanly at once.
"Cancel Culture" is a bullshit term for "accountability"
'parties my not break business ties should one party to this contract post highly publicized anti-semitic statements'. There you go. Iron clad protection from cancel culture, all in a free market way without government involvement.
No one is obligated to give either their money or attention to Elon Musk, or to third parties that are perceived to support Musk's companies.
The problem is, that it is not customers doing it. That would be classic boycott.
It is pressure on supply chain, to isolate "misbehaving" company.
Similar to racketeering.
> No one is obligated to give either their money or attention to Elon Musk, or to third parties that are perceived to support Musk's companies.
That's OK. But this is not about giving money or attention to Elon Musk. It is about pressuring others not giving money or attention to Elon Musk. And if you don't comply, you will be isolated too.
Get over it, man.
Get over it, man.