I know X is majority hated these days on here but this sounds like a great victory for all if they win imo
It’s hard to disagree that there are pariahs that you’d not want as customers. On the other hand, I’d much rather live a world where the phone company operates phones and sells access to networks, ISPs sell server space, banks deal with financial instruments, and all of them leave their social, political, or moral stances to themselves. I don’t go to my local retailer for a lecture on the social injustice of the month. The idea of a Reddit style world where if you participate in one community, regardless of your behavior, you’ll be banned from another is about as distopian as it gets.
I’d describe my feelings about the advertising boycott as very mixed, and think it’s worth maintaining a clear distinction between these categories of service. I’d find it equally dystopian to live in an environment that doesn’t allow companies to take a principled stance against obvious abuse or to stop spending money when a company goes through dramatic changes that fundamentally alter the advertising environment.
What I’m most curious about is whether or not the boycotts were truly contingent vs. just centrally organized.
On the one hand, some on that list are abhorrent. On the other hand, some just disagree with the positions of the ADL and the ADL knows it can turn screws on those that cross their path. That power seems unacceptable, and apparently may be illegal.
Should those not convicted of any crime, living freely in society, be prohibited from buying milk at a grocery store because their words or ideas are considered incorrect by some self selected taste makers? If you disagreed with those with the power to make those lists would you feel the same way?
The Reddit example might be closer to the type of coordination it targets, but it would be hard to apply anti-monopoly legislation to volunteer Reddit mods.
When a person posts an antisemitic on X, the people who notice said post do not know with any certainty what ISP was used, so there's nothing to associate the post with a given ISP. Furthermore, even if readers did know what ISP was used, the general assumption (correct or no) is that ISPs don't monitor traffic going through their pipes, so they neither know nor can control what data is sent over the wire, thus absolving them of any responsibility for what someone decides to post on X.
Contrast this with X itself. As the host of said message, there's a direct link between the content seen and X. As X already moderates content on its platform, a claim can be made that it bears responsibility for posts that are left up for any significant amount of time. The fact X sells ad space which appears next to the hosted content only reinforces this responsibility.
If you prefer to deal with a meatspace analogy: consider a billboard company. Should someone rent space on a billboard in a widely-visible area and paint a giant penis on it, most onlookers would disapprove, and they'd foster a growing discontent with the company the longer it's left up. However, few, if any, would attack the nearby Lowe's or Home Depot for selling paint and paint brushes that could have been used for the picture or go after the city for daring to build and maintain the roads allowing access to the billboard.
X is a digital billboard company. They aren't neutral here: they're actively aiding you in getting your message in front of more people with the hope that any engagement your message triggers will increase ad revenue.
And really any voluntary business code, like Fair Trade or LEED or the AMA's medical ethics codes are illegal?
Did they choose not to advertise on X for political reasons, or because associating their brands with toxic content would damage their profitability?
Maybe the richest man in the world wanted to be able to play the victim (again).
They're not competitors, they're customers; WFA is a worldwide association of smaller marketing associations and multinational corporations: https://www.wfanet.org/about-wfa/our-members/global-brands
The marketing associations include purchasers, advertising/marketing agencies, and yes, other ad providers.
> colluding
You need to look up that word in the dictionary. An industry trade group publicly announcing (with press releases and an entire website) something is not collusion.
> for political reasons
"Twitter doesn't do anything about hate speech, has re-instated numerous people whose sole identity is gender, racial, sexual orientation, and ethnicity based bigotry and the CEO repeatedly makes white supremacist comments - and thus the platform is not safe for our members or brands or in line with their policies/'values'" is not "political."
Musk is a supposed free speech absolutist/purist. To an extreme degree, I might add; he claims even a social media company deplatforming people is a violation of someone's free speech rights and was his motivation for purchasing Twitter. Yet he routinely bans people from his platform for even mentioning unflattering things about him or his companies, and conveniently seems to forget that freedom of association is part of the first amendment.
Then there's the journalist-banning bender Twitter has been on since Musk bought it which is not at all compatible with being a first amendment extreme absolutist. The fact that the Kingdom of Saud was a major financial backer in the purchase and really, really doesn't like the platform twitter provides for journalists has nothing to do with all of this /s
At least he's consistent about being inconsistent.
On the other hand, there's a trend for social media platforms lately to downrank anything that's not advertiser-friendly whether it's Facebook posts containing profanity or Youtube videos about guns. I don't think tech billionaires suing each other about it is an ideal resolution, but I don't like this trend.