Elon Musk's Choice for CEO Has People Worried the Days of Free Speech on Twitter are Over
Tell me if this sounds at all familiar. A self-made mogul is the sole proprietor of an internet company that the whole world is talking about. He makes enemies along the way of people who are deeply offended by some of the content on his site, even the funniest material. The critics constantly try to take him out by organizing advertisers boycotts. Eventually this visionary chooses an accomplished career woman with experience in the field as Chief Executive Officer to grow the business as he focuses on more of the creative/content side of things. Meanwhile, said mogul continues to be one of the most recognizable and polarizing figures in American culture.
Well, there is this example:
But we're here to discuss Elon Musk, and his choice of CEO, Linda Yaccarino:
CNN - Earlier in the day, Yaccarino announced that she was leaving her role as chairman of global advertising and partnerships at NBCUniversal. …
As CEO, Yaccarino will face a long list of challenges that have piled up under Musk’s ownership, including an advertiser exodus, service disruptions, regulatory scrutiny and a growing list of rivals. Musk’s controversial policy changes and statements have also alienated some longtime Twitter users. …
Musk has clashed with mainstream media outlets and also said he hates advertising. But Yaccarino represents both those worlds. …
NBCUniversal’s ad sales team has generated $100 billion in ad sales since she joined in 2011, according to her profile, and forged partnerships with many new media companies including Twitter as well as Apple News, Buzzfeed, Snapchat and YouTube.
Musk's choice of Yaccarino has a lot of his most high profile supporters shook. Not because she doesn't come with a resume that screams competence and a record of success when it comes to bringing to her employers. She does. But when you're the World's Richest Man [tm], you don't exactly engender a lot of sympathy from people worried you're losing money in one of your 50 business enterprises. No, Musk stans are worried about this interview he gave her, where she seemed to be arguing, if not an outright pro-censorship position, at least policing Twitter more than he has been:
TPM - Yaccarino suggested that advertisers should work to turn Twitter into a place where they will be "excited about investing more money."
"Product development, ad safe, content moderation," she said. "That's what the influence is."
Musk cautioned against letting advertisers take over certain aspects of the platform.
"It's totally cool to say that you want to have your advertising appear in certain places in Twitter and not in other places," he said, "but it is not cool to try to say what Twitter will do."
Musk stated that "freedom of speech is paramount," and that, "if that means losing advertiser dollars, we lose it."Yaccarino called on Musk to reinstate the infamous "Influence Council" under a new name, giving advertisers access to the company's execs.
"I would be wary of that creating a backlash among the public," Musk replied, "because if the public thinks that their views are being determined by a small number of CMOs in America, they will be upset about that."
And now that this interview is resurfacing, Musk people are digging into Yaccarino's history. And they are less than pleased with what they're finding. From the way her loyalties haven't aligned with his:
To her posting the same kind of cloying, vapid, supercilious bullshit every insufferable wine mom was doing three years ago:
And that is where we stand at the moment, with the new CEO still six weeks or so from taking charge.
I feel like I have taken a back seat to no one when it comes to supporting Musk's takeover of Twitter. I think it was a selfless act of patriotism for him to spend $44 billion to buy the thing in the first place. He certainly didn't do it for his own good. The company was never worth that and he was certain to lose billions. It was only worth it to him to bring free expression back to the platform. And the only speech worth protecting is the stuff you don't want to hear. And it's always better to combat that with free speech of your own, than ban the content you don't like. That's why they put it at the beginning of the Bill of Rights. It's what all the rights that follow are based on.
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But that's easy for us to say. First because of the Constitution. Second, and I can't stress this enough, because that's not our money Twitter is bleeding. We have the luxury of idealism. Because our only skin in the game is being able to call each other "asshole" and tell offensive jokes. No one's asking anyone but Musk to piss away his hard-earned fortune to protect the sacredness of our right to be dicks to one another. Granted, I wish like hell he would. But I try to deal with reality on reality's terms. And even someone with his money isn't going to make that sacrifice.
Musk has tried a lot of things to turn his company around, and none of them have worked. It appears his only hope is attracting advertisers. And American corporations are oddly skittish about having their ad for auto insurance pop up on your feed right after a porn or someone pledging allegiance the political party that claimed credit for turning the German economy around in the 1930s. Apparently Yaccarino has an acumen for reassuring cautious companies they can come spend their money, reach their target demo, and not step in the cesspool that forms whenever you let anyone get away with saying anything they want anonymously on the internet.
We'll see. Fans of chaos like myself would much rather see Twitter keep more to Elon's vision than hers. But hopefully the two of them can strike some balance between real life messiness in the marketplace of ideas and a sustainable business model that gets rid of the truly dark stuff no rational human would want. It's just that no one has ever found exactly where that line should be drawn. It's going to be a fascinating few months on that site.