Kanye West too much even for Musk’s Twitter

Ye has brought Musk to a fork in the road and marketers are waiting to see which route he takes.

on December 2, 2022

Elon Musk announced Friday, by tweet of course, that the account of Kanye West, now known as Ye, has been suspended. Whether or not the suspension is temporary was not clear. This followed a now-deleted tweet from the rapper reported to have contained an image of a swastika inside a Star of David.

According to the Twitter CEO, the post infringed the platform’s rule against incitement to violence, thus indicating that there are boundaries to free speech even under the new Twitter regime.

Why we care. The problem for Musk is that new research shows that slurs against Black Americans on the platform have tripled since he took over the reins, while anti-semitic slurs leapt over 60% in the two weeks following his acquisition. The data comes from the Center for Countering Digital Hate, the Anti-Defamation League and other groups.

What does this mean for marketers? Those planning to continue to use Twitter as a marketing channel must be scratching their heads. Is this the beginning of a clampdown on an increasingly unsafe-for-brands environment, or will Musk reverse himself as he so often does?

Musk announced himself as a “free speech absolutist,” but we now see that the absolutism has limits. But why just Ye? Marketers will rightly be concerned about advertising alongside the rising hate speech on the site, even if it’s coming from less well-known accounts.

 

Musk under attack. Some high profile figures have emerged to criticize Musk’s handling of these issues. Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts said back in November that “I don’t think any billionaire ought to be the one who has that kind of power, to decide how Americans, how people around the world get a chance to talk to each other.” Of course, Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook, holding over 50% of the voting shares, has comparable authority.

Today, the musician Jack White made remarks highlighting Musk’s dilemma.

Kanye West too much even for Musk’s Twitter | DeviceDaily.com
https://www.instagram.com/p/Clquz0ur93D/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

The post Kanye West too much even for Musk’s Twitter appeared first on MarTech.

MarTech

About The Author

Kim Davis is the Editorial Director of MarTech. Born in London, but a New Yorker for over two decades, Kim started covering enterprise software ten years ago. His experience encompasses SaaS for the enterprise, digital- ad data-driven urban planning, and applications of SaaS, digital technology, and data in the marketing space. He first wrote about marketing technology as editor of Haymarket’s The Hub, a dedicated marketing tech website, which subsequently became a channel on the established direct marketing brand DMN. Kim joined DMN proper in 2016, as a senior editor, becoming Executive Editor, then Editor-in-Chief a position he held until January 2020. Prior to working in tech journalism, Kim was Associate Editor at a New York Times hyper-local news site, The Local: East Village, and has previously worked as an editor of an academic publication, and as a music journalist. He has written hundreds of New York restaurant reviews for a personal blog, and has been an occasional guest contributor to Eater.

(36)