- X users are complaining about an influx of low-quality ads promoting crypto scams and AI “undressing” apps.
- The decline in reputable advertisers on X has made the platform more reliant on less reputable ad buyers.
- The exodus of advertisers, partially due to Elon Musk’s controversial behavior, has left X with a growing revenue gap.
Archive link: https://archive.ph/sbOxS
I still use Twitter but I have no idea what the quality of ads is like since they’re long blocked. I could well imagine that there is some absolute bottom of the barrel garbage and scams a plenty.
I’m calling it now. Even if his aim was to not destroy Twitter from the inside, he will absolutely say that was his goal when it eventually happens.
People like this never, pathologically, ever, ever admit making a mistake.
404 Media report[ed] last month that ads promoting “semen stealing” were showing up on the site.
Wait what now
Yep, I’ve seen that, along with ads for “jack-off pants”:
I wanted to see what kind of ads that might actually be since I have zero concept. I do not recommend typing “semen stealing” into Google innocently and hoping for an answer.
I’m going to have some weird ads now…
If you don’t want to search it up, here are the first 3 DuckDuckGo results for “semen stealing”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_fatherhood
https://news.yahoo.com/spurgling-stealing-sperm-pregnant-121820779.html
https://www.refinery29.com/en-gb/2022/01/10831906/baby-trapping-illegal
Here’s the summary for the wikipedia article you mentioned in your comment:
Forced fatherhood or imposed paternity, occurs when a man’s semen is used, against his will or without his knowledge or consent, to inseminate a woman, it includes deception by a partner about their ability to get pregnant or use of contraceptives, birth control sabotage, and sexual assaults of males that result in pregnancy. “Sperm theft” (also known as “unauthorized use of sperm”, “spermjacking” or “spurgling” (a portmanteau of sperm and burgling), refers to a specific form of forced fatherhood where a males semen is collected without his consent. Although the term uses the word “theft”, it more closely falls under a state of fraud or breach of contract. Stealing of sperm in itself without using it for successful insemination is not illegal and is difficult to prove. It usually has no bearing on issues like child support.
Say what now? Stealing sperm isn’t illegal unless you use it?
Yea this guy is the hero of the thread, I would have just not bothered with the article if it wasn’t for you pointing that line out
I mean, where do you get your semen?
I make my own.
AI undressing apps you say? AI’s about to make that video of Elon telling advertisers to fuck off a lot more surprising.
“Oh, my God, that’s disgusting! Software that makes naked pics online? Where? Where did they post those?”
“What’s that melting refrigerator? I thought this was an undressing app!”
Didnt Netflix just start doing ads on there again?
You advertise to your audience. Ads targeting the perverse and the stupid seem perfectly suited to twitter.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the far right wing christofascists start seeing CP AI generators adverts suddenly, it would fit their preferences so well.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
They are also spreading rapidly across the internet, according to data from the social-media analysis firm Graphika, which warned such tools could be used for sextortion and targeted harassment campaigns.
Hamza Mudassir, a strategy consultant and lecturer at Cambridge University, noted that suspicious ads appear across all social-media platforms.
“However, I think the problem with X is that, because all of the large advertisers have effectively walked out, this is what you see in higher frequency, which basically produces a terrible time for genuine users on the platform,” he told BI.
Since taking over the site, Musk has slashed X’s content-moderation team and reinstated figures such as Alex Jones who was previously removed from the platform for abusive behavior, something that made advertisers distinctly uneasy even before the billionaire’s recent controversies.
“The fact that X has made it abundantly clear that it has no desire to create a brand-safe environment has only solidified our recommendations to move to growing platforms with better opportunities for organic discovery,” he added.
The Financial Times reported last month that X was attempting to offset the loss of companies like IBM and Walmart by appealing to smaller businesses and aiming to bring in $100 million in political ads during the 2024 election year.
The original article contains 756 words, the summary contains 208 words. Saved 72%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
- The exodus of advertisers, partially due to Elon Musk’s controversial behavior, has left X with a growing revenue gap.
The main reason Twitter has a revenue gap is that Musk saddled it with $13bn of debt with his leveraged buyout. The business isn’t failing because of Musk’s management since then, it’s failing because that was the purpose derived from the purchase.
Yeah he bought it to crush it and make it the far right christofascist heaven on earth.
Since when do “high quality ads” exist? I mean, the mentioning of “low quality ads” implies that those others might actually exist.
There’s low quality ads, shit tier ads and then there’s whatever Muskyboi is attracting these days.
SUCH GUD BIZNESS MAN
How about we agree to call X/Twitter as Xitter. It avoids the confusion.
I find it particularly funny to call it X(formerly twitter) every time I have to mention it.
Also kind of love how Dubious X is as a name cause I always think it’s a porn site before my brain clicks
Yup and tweets as xeets pronounced as “shits”.
xeets pronounced as “shits”
I would pronounce that “sheeeeeiittts”
Well he told advertisers to fuck off so they did.
To me as an average Joe it seems pretty dumb to tell your advertisers to fuck off when they provide a big chunk of your income but hey, I’m not a stable genius billionaire so I just don’t get Elon’s 5D chess moves. Right?
Max? Is that you?
Too bad, so sad
One perspective on this might be that Elon and friends have successfully identified a set of dubious advertisers and hate-tolerant userbase.
Another perspective would consider that Dime Store Alex Jones probably has a much smaller marketing budget than, say, Disney.
Elon has cultivated a hate-tolerant user base, and has found himself with the kind of advertisers that user base gets you.
Well ya, that’s the standard explanation, and probably the most likely to be right.
I like to wonder if there might be other explanations, or even multiple explanations. You’ve heard I’m sure of the quote like “never attribute to malice which can be adequately explained by stupidity”? I have my own version of that that goes something like this:
Never attribute an act to stupidity when a clear pattern of malice is apparent.
The malice, in this case, is the deliberate cultivation of a hate-tolerant audience. Let’s not forget that Elon got into this mess because of a stupid game of chicken he decided to play with Twitter’s board in order to convince them to let him say transphobic slurs on the platform (imagine hating your daughter that much?)
Such a pathetic sad hateful stupid person he is.
I care just enough to say I don’t care.
I was repeatedly called a GPT3 bot on Xitter. This was before it was even public.
You admit you care, and that’s the first step to curing your addiction.
Curing my addiction? Hell no, I just substituted it with Mastodon and Lemmy!