Elon leaves World Cup money on the table to promote Nazi content
Advertisers apparently remain unconvinced that the First Amendment requires them to pay to associate their brands with fascism:
The World Cup has historically been a boon for Twitter, bringing in record traffic and an influx of advertising dollars.
But this time, when the global soccer tournament started on Nov. 20, Twitter’s U.S. ad revenue was running at 80 percent below internal expectations for that week, three people with knowledge of the figures said.
In tandem, Twitter was rapidly cutting its revenue projections. The company previously forecast that it would generate $1.4 billion in the last three months of the year, down from $1.6 billion a year ago because of the global economic downturn. But as Twitter kept missing its weekly advertising targets, that number slid to $1.3 billion, then to $1.1 billion, two people said.
Elon Musk, Twitter’s new owner, has warned repeatedly that his social media company faces dire financial straits. Interviews with seven former employees and internal documents seen by The New York Times paint a fuller picture of Twitter’s financial woes.
Still, he’s definitely getting what he wants for the money:
Neo-Nazi Andrew Anglin has been reinstated to Twitter under Elon Musk’s new policies for the platform. The founder of the white supremacist website The Daily Stormer had been banned from Twitter since 2013.
Anglin has publicly indicated that the goal of his operation and adherence to white nationalist ideology is to “ethnically cleanse White nations of non-Whites and establish an authoritarian government. Many people also believe that the Jews should be exterminated.” Anglin is a staunch supporter of Nazi ideology and regularly espouses Holocaust denail. In 2018, Anglin wrote that he “[hates] women. I think they deserve to be beaten, raped and locked in cages.”
Almost immediately upon having his account reinstated, Anglin tweeted a response to rapper Ye praising Hitler and denying the Holocaust on Alex Jones’ show. “Saying you love Hitler is not even a big deal,” Anglin wrote, “no one cares about that. The man died 80 years ago.” Anglin also endorsed Ye in his presidential run.
Mission accomplished, if you look at the mission on his own terms.