Elon Musk is being ridiculous. Companies are free to choose where to advertise | Hacker News Reader

Elon Musk is being ridiculous. Companies are free to choose where to advertise

theguardian.com

21 pointsjethronethro16 comments

I'll say it again, this argument is a total straw man. Of course it's ridiculous that someone wants to compel someone else to contract with them and pay them. So ridiculous in fact, that if you believe this is what's going on you should rethink it.

This lawsuit is about a cartel arrangement to hurt a company in retaliation because of it's moderation policy. I don't think it's a strong case, but there is a case to be made, and I'm eager to see how it plays out in court.

It seems like a flaw that sufficiently wealthy people can use the courts to harass their opponents no matter how weak the case. There's literally no downside. All it costs is money and he's got hundreds of billions.

Yeah I agree with you. Even if youre right and it's plainly obvious, a lawsuit can destroy your life. The chilling effect is probably costing our society quite a bit.

I really think there should be some sort of limit on these. Lose enough of them (this is not his first rodeo) and you have to front all the costs for both sides if you want to be allowed to sue.

I don't think that's sufficient to limit these. To limit them, frivolous lawsuits need punitive damages that eliminate the ability of the frivolous party to keep filing them - then, the risks would be symmetric between the parties.

I’m sure this won’t come up at all during any litigation…

https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/29/23981928/elon-musk-ad-bo...

This of course, this comes on the heel of Musk’s free choice to move SpaceX’s HQ to Texas to avoid legislation on gender identity.

Seems very very silly to fight this unless you're sure you have damning, concrete evidence that companies are colluding to not advertise on Twitter. Like, many emails between advertisers saying "we're all deciding not to spend money on Twitter" - and even then, I'd think it's entirely in their collective rights to do that.

Or, you have a lot of money to spend and want to try and set some sort of precedent to hopefully end the hypocritical attitudes of these companies. Who knows - there might already be precedent and the droves of internet hacks giving their uninformed opinions (including me!) will be proven wrong?

It's humorous to see companies deciding to throw millions of dollars around to drape themselves in rainbow colors in the west, while simultaneously zipping their lips in other countries who don't share the same sentiment.

It's the attitude of "if it'll make us money, then we'll do it, but if it maybe possibly might result in fewer customers, it's not worth it".

Bring back smaller companies and shatter mega corporations into thousands of individual pieces.

> Bring back smaller companies and shatter mega corporations into thousands of individual pieces.

This would similar to advocating leaving Twitter for federated protocols like Bluesky (ATProto) and Mastadon (ActivityPub)

Santa Clara County Auto Dealers Association Settles Charges Over Alleged Advertising Boycott

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/1995/08/...

Is advertising collusion illegal in the US?

Using a third-party organization to establish common selling prices amongst independent sellers appears to be suspect. Even if the sellers don't actively "collude" to set the price.

This is what is happening in the San Francisco rental marketplace, right now.

As for buyers (advertisement buyers) belonging to a group that evidently was colluding with various buyers to induce their wider membership to exclude a subset of sellers (websites) because of their political leanings?

Maybe this is just activist "boycotting". If every ad buying company in the organization, and every agency was aware that they were all trying to penalize websites that held certain opinions, that should be fine: It's just the "Anti-Conservative Ad Buying Club". No harm, no foul -- Just baddies like X, Daily Wire, Zero Hedge, etc. get hurt.

But, it doesn't appear that everyone involved knew that was the game being played. They were just members of an ad industry organization that recommended good behaviour.

If so, then everyone should be OK if some companies join an "Anti Leftist Ad Buyers Club", and boycotts CNN, WaPo, etc.? Right??

HN is, unfortunately, now sadly inhabited by many un-inquisitive cowards.

Why is collusion of buyers (group influence over supply) not fundamentally different than collusion of sellers (restriction of supply)? I don't agree with pretty much anything being done, by either side, but it's interesting.

It used to be much more interesting, here; filled with people who asked "why" things occur, and if things form coherent patterns, what this could mean?

Now, it is evidently a boring leftist DEI soy-boy echo chamber. If one engages in wrongthink, one gets silently downvoted, evidently by people who hold opinions they cannot robustly support...

First off yes I (and I think 99% of people) would be totally fine with your closing hypothetical. Why would I care about CNN’s ad revenue? Never even enters my mind.

But more fundamentally your frame totally omits brand safety, which is kind of the whole ball game. A group that exists to evaluate brands safety thought that changes to Twitter made it less brand safe and said so. It’s like suing a bond rating agency for downgrading your rating

The evidence presented thus far doesn't have any discussion of brand safety, and appears focussed on retribution for wrongthink against specific ad platforms.

Which may or may not be fine. IANAL.

Personally, I am shocked and appalled by the (few) ads I've seen lately, and arrange my affairs to avoid using any vendors I see advertising on the mainstream channels touted by the defendant in this case as being "safe" for their represented brands.

My young daughter sees none of these ads, as they are IMHO generally sex-cultish religious indoctrination... (specifically: the ads / programming revolves around glorifying whatever sexual identities or behaviours are embraced by that religion, instead of on the relevant topic or event at hand).

Once again, that's fine -- and I don't think there's a legal foundation preventing individuals (or the companies they own) from avoiding ad sellers that appear to be ideologically / religiously motivated to proselytize for (or avoid) sex-cultish religions.

It is probably even fine for an advertising industry organization to proclaim publicly that it rejects ad platforms based on ideological grounds -- I would certainly join such an organization, if it resulting in my company's advertising never appearing on a channel that contains sex-cultish religious programming or advertising!

Would that be ... illegal? I hope not!

So, in that light -- what is wrong with this industry organization avoiding ad channels that reject sex-cultish religious programming or advertising?

If everyone involved knew exactly that this was the goal of the defendant's organization (and they all felt that their product's ads belonged on channels containing such IMHO questionable programming), why wouldn't that be just fine?

Boycotts or business collusion is complicated

- https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/boycotts/

- https://myresearchpath.duke.edu/anti-boycott-regulations

- https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/boycott

There is a difference between individuals and companies engaging in a boycott and whom that boycott is against. Political reasons tend to get 1st Amendment protections whereas those to for hands in business tend not to be legal.

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