When Actions Have Costly Consequences

When news of Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter hit the airwaves, communications professionals around the globe held their collective breath, waiting to see how his ownership would impact the social media platform.  Within hours, it became apparent that the dynamics of the platform, including its policies on fake news and hate speech were rapidly changing.

Twitter employees are quitting by the dozens, stating unreasonable demands from their new boss and a complete disillusionment of how the platform has evolved.  There was even a temporary shutdown of operations due to the number of people holding key operational positions who left the company.

Since Musk took ownership of Twitter on Oct. 28, 50 out of the top 100 advertisers on the social media platform have pulled their ads, Media Matters has reported. These 50 companies spent a combined $750 million on Twitter ads in 2022, and $2 billion since 2020, the media watchdog reports.

From a personal standpoint, Twitter lost its appeal for me several years ago when it went from being a place to have true engagement to a place full of hatred. I still have my account and I still scroll through my feed on a daily basis.  But other than sharing content from the HMA blog, I rarely post or respond, unless I actually know the person in real life.

Truth is, Musk can do what he pleases with the company – he paid a ton of money for it.  But actions have consequences.  It will be interesting to see what happens over the coming months – will we migrate to a new platform like Mastadon?  Will advertisers continue to pull their dollars?  Will social media managers delete the platform from strategies?