#StopToxicTwitter Banners Greet Elon Musk Ahead of Miami Speech

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#StopToxicTwitter Banners Greet Elon Musk Ahead of Miami Speech


As Elon Musk drops into city this week to mingle with advertising executives for a world advert convention in Miami, a bunch of activists hopes to persuade advertisers that the Twitter boss’ unpredictable methods are unhealthy for enterprise.

And what higher method to get their consideration than with giant letters hovering throughout the sky?

Ahead of Musk’s keynote speech on the POSSIBLE advert conference on the Fontainebleau Miami Beach Hotel, civil-rights activists from the teams Free Press, Media Matters for America, and Accountable Tech have strategically flown banners above the occasion venue in an try and remind advertisers of the fallout from Twitter’s rising tolerance of hate speech. On Monday, as promoting business executives gathered in Miami Beach for the three-day-long occasion, the teams flew an all-caps banner that learn, “Musk Is Bad For Business #StopToxicTwitter.”

On April 18, an hour earlier than Musk’s afternoon keynote speech, a banner that learn, “Brands Deserve Better  #StopToxicTwitter,” circled the venue.

“We know advertisers see Twitter for the hellscape it has become under Musk,” Nora Benavidez, Free Press senior counsel and director of digital justice and civil rights, said in a statement. “The real question now is what they’re going to do about it.”

The Google-sponsored event, organized by the marketing trade association MMA Global, runs April 17-19. Speakers include the likes of Alex Rodriguez, LL Cool J, and Jon Bon Jovi.

Musk’s Miami visit comes on the heels of more than half of Twitter’s top 1,000 advertisers leaving the platform as of February, according to data shared with Vox by the digital marketing analysis firm Pathmatics. Of Twitter’s top 10 advertisers before Musk acquired the platform, only six still advertised with the social media site as of late March, according to the firm. The exodus came as Musk’s platform loosened its restrictions on misinformation and hate speech.

A few days after Musk took control of Twitter, he conceded that the company “had a massive drop in revenue,” which he attributed to activist groups pressuring advertisers.

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Elon Musk attends Heidi Klum’s 21st Annual Halloween Party on October 31, 2022 in New York City.

“Extremely messed up! They’re trying to destroy free speech in America,” Musk tweeted.

The protests in Miami come amid Musk’s controversial rollback of Twitter’s longtime hateful-conduct policy as it relates to transgender people.

According to LGBTQ-advocacy group GLAAD, the 2018 policy previously read: “We prohibit targeting others with repeated slurs, tropes or other content that intends to dehumanize, degrade or reinforce negative or harmful stereotypes about a protected category. This includes targeted misgendering or deadnaming of transgender individuals.”

That final sentence was quietly eliminated –– its final identified look within the coverage dates to April 7, in accordance with a search on the Wayback Machine’s web archive.

The observe of focused misgendering and deadnaming has been categorized by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and different civil-rights teams as a type of hate speech

“Twitter’s determination to covertly roll again its longtime coverage is the newest instance of simply how unsafe the corporate is for customers and advertisers alike,” reads an announcement from GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis.

At the convention, Musk had an onstage dialogue with NBCU chair of worldwide promoting Linda Yaccarino, by which he defended Twitter’s new coverage of “freedom of speech, not attain,” in accordance with an AdExchanger report.

“If any person has one thing hateful to say, that doesn’t imply it’s best to give them a megaphone. They ought to nonetheless have the ability to say it, but it surely shouldn’t be pushed on individuals… We’re not going to advertise that to individuals or advocate it,” Musk stated.

MMA Global, which has 800 member corporations globally, billed the Miami Beach occasion as a “centerpiece for your complete advertising and media group to community with business friends, share concepts, current visions and talk about mutual challenges.”

In early April, a collection of allegedly leaked emails obtained by Semafor confirmed that the commerce affiliation’s leaders, largely composed of high-level advertising executives, had reservations about Musk’s presence at  the convention and have been involved the controversy surrounding his participation would overshadow the occasion. One fast-food firm advertising govt reportedly recalled how model managers have been compelled to “navigate a scenario post-acquisition” of Twitter “that objectively can solely be characterised as starting from chaos to moments of irresponsibility.”

A Twitter govt who was collaborating within the dialog provided to rearrange a gathering between Musk and the involved MMA Global leaders on the convention “in an effort to foster probably the most wholesome dialog potential,” in accordance with the report.



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