Twitter, News, Politics and Ethics: Key Takeaways

Posted on November 9, 2022

Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover has been…eventful to say the least. Here are some of my key takeaways for brands and organizations wondering what this might mean for them on the bird app.

This is a good reminder to everyone that your organization’s chief executive officer is also your chief spokesperson

I’m concerned on multiple levels as I’ve been watching Elon’s tweets since taking over the company. It seems like he does not have communications staff who are advising him to be careful with his tweets OR he’s flatly rejecting their counsel. Either way, this should be a good case study for an organization to reflect on, and remember that a CEO of any company making public statements on social media is acting as that company’s spokesperson and those statements will be assumed to represent the company.

Great when your CEO issues a statement of positivity for people who celebrate Diwali…

…but not so much when your CEO tells his 115 million followers to vote for a specific party in the midterms, retweets a misinformation article from a questionable source, or trashes the New York Times with a cheap joke.

I am concerned about Twitter’s political neutrality

Elon Musk is allowed to have political opinions. You have them, I have them, and it’s assumed everyone has preferences for specific parties and stances on polarizing issues. That’s not the problem here. The problem is that Twitter is many things but perhaps most importantly a news propagation network. As an individual user and as a marketer when I see the CEO of a social media network directly endorse a political party, I justifiably wonder if that means that he might put his thumb on the scale of the platform’s algorithm. Will more conservative viewpoints and accounts be given greater weight in the feed? It’s hard to believe Twitter will be politically neutral and algorithmic decisions will be unbiased at this point.

I’m also concerned about Twitter’s internal ability to evaluate fake news on the platform

After news of the attack on Paul Pelosi broke out, Elon tweeted a link to a story from a questionable source hinting that a greater conspiracy was at play. He then tweeted a joke that the New York Times is fake news after receiving backlash from the Santa Monica Observer post.

The New York Times is certainly not above criticism but they absolutely practice legitimate journalism. There is a canyon of difference between the legitimacy of the NYT as a news source and the Santa Monica Observer. It goes beyond bias — it’s a literal question of real versus fake news. For a news-based social media network’s chief spokesperson to fail to see the difference between these two sources brings real questions into the platform’s ability to address misinformation and disinformation.

You should be concerned about brand safety

How closely do you want to be associated with all of this chaos? I would be very concerned about brand safety if you choose to advertise on this platform and I’d stay away from the “is Elon good for Twitter?” dialogues happening while the new ownership makes changes. Just this week Twitter rolled out an additional “verified” checkmark and then retracted it after being live for less than 24 hours. It’s hard to believe they have much of a game plan for brands right now.

Advertising may get better

While I would consider hitting pause on my Twitter ad buys in most circumstances, on a positive note, the advertising portfolio may improve in the future. I’ve always thought Twitter ads were some of the weakest among the big players in the digital space. The ad options have never been great and neither has the targeting. Relative to paid search and Facebook/Insta, I’ve had a hard time replicating good ad performance on the bird app. That being said, it sounds like all options are on the table for increasing revenue, including improving the advertiser experience. We’ll see.

Keep Tweeting but cautiously.

I’m not sure I’m ready to pull the plug on Twitter entirely just yet. Yes, it has been a very chaotic few weeks and while I have some serious concerns about brand safety and potential pushback for running ads right now, I don’t think it’s time to alter your communications plans. There haven’t been many core changes made that would make me reevaluate if I want Twitter to remain in my portfolio of communications channels, but that could change in the future. Particularly if Twitter fails to figure out how to balance its verification system while protecting the legitimacy of those accounts with their drive to collect more revenue from users. I’m still not sure I understand what the value of a verified account will be if anyone can get it if they pay $8.

I don’t think Twitter knows either.

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