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Pfizer, Audi, Mondelez Join Growing List Of Companies Pausing Ads On Twitter

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Nikolas Kokovlis/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Several years ago, when the “liberal, tolerant” left first decided to cancel Zerohedge , they did so using their two favorite eradication strategies: deplatforming (we were removed from Facebook and Twitter, a death sentence for most websites that depend on media powerhouses for their traffic, luckily we are not one of them) and demonetization (we lost ads hosted by Google, Amazon, and various other platforms, and we also were booted by PayPal, which in retrospect was a lucky outcome).

Despite this full-bore effort by the left to silence us, we somehow survived – in large part thanks to our readers who have signed up as subscribers for our premium offering.

Fast forward to today when it is now the turn of the world’s richest man to go through this same drama.

In a carbon copy of what happened to us, America’s woke, politically correct corporations are taking aim at Twitter in hopes of starving it of cash, nevermind that its traffic is orders of magnitude greater than such socialist-endorsed, mindnumbingly boring propaganda websites and TV channels as MSNBC, CNN, Vox, The Atlantic and everything else that desperately relies on implicit advertiser subsidies to survive. According to the WSJfood giant General Mills, Oreo maker Mondelez, pandemic profiteers Pfizer and Volkswagen’s Audi are among a growing list of brands that have “temporarily” paused their Twitter advertising in the wake of the takeover of the company by Elon Musk. General Motors paused its spending on the social-media platform last week.

Kelsey Roemhildt, a spokeswoman for General Mills, whose brands include Cheerios, Bisquick and Häagen-Dazs, confirmed the company has paused Twitter ads. “As always, we will continue to monitor this new direction and evaluate our marketing spend,” she said.

Musk Humiliates AOC After She Whines About $8 Verification Fee

Some advertisers are concerned that Mr. Musk could scale back content moderation, which they worry would lead to an increase in objectionable content on the platform, which should answer Elon Musk’s question what advertisers prefer: free speech or political correctness.

Other advertisers temporarily halting their ads because of the uncertainty at the company as top executives exit and Mr. Musk considers a raft of changes, some of the people said.

And just in case it’s still unclear, as long as a handful of shrill, ultra-left harpies such as this lunatic manage to outshout everyone else, it will always be free speech that loses, even if that means that advertisers are stuck peddling their wares at places like MSNBC and CNN where most of the audience has zero disposable income as it is entirely reliant on the government for its handouts.

Several ad buyers say they expect the number of brands pausing Twitter ads to rise. The platform isn’t considered a must-buy for many advertisers, with far larger budgets going to tech giants such as Google and Meta Platforms, they say, and pausing makes sense during the bumpy transition under Musk.

Additionally, many executives on Madison Avenue are uneasy with the rash of sudden executive departures from Twitter’s advertising sales and marketing units. Among those who have exited are Chief Customer Officer Sarah Personette, Chief Marketing Officer Leslie Berland, and Jean-Philippe Maheu, Twitter’s vice president of global client solutions. Those executives “helped reassure advertisers that their ad dollars were being spent wisely and appropriately on Twitter” according to the Journal. We assume that means that the woke ad agencies were assured that only liberals would be allowed to view their ads.

Musk has been working to reassure advertisers, both publicly and privately, that the platform will remain a safe place for brands. Since tweeting last week that Twitter “cannot become a free-for-all hellscape,” the billionaire has participated in several meetings and video calls with some of the world’s largest ad companies and blue-chip advertisers, ad executives said.

On Wednesday, Musk participated in a video call with WPP PLC, the world’s largest ad company, and some of its clients such as Coca-Cola, Unilever PLC and Google, according to people familiar with the meeting. During the meeting, Musk stressed that Twitter would be a safe place for brands, promising to rid the platform of bots and add community-management tools, according to the people.

He also discussed how he was seeking to segment the content on Twitter so users could customize what shows up in their feeds. That would allow people to have the equivalent of a PG-rated version of the platform, Musk said, and give advertisers the ability to choose which content to be near.

Somehow we doubt that approach will succeed. Instead, what Musk – and other thought leaders – should do, is show the variance in disposable incomes between those who frequent conservative media outlets, and those which are a magnet for liberals. Something tells us advertisers will be very surprise at who has more purchasing power. Because when you cut out the virtue signaling and the PC bullshit, at the end of the day, an ad is supposed to reach the richest, most willing to buy segment of society. The fact that this has become lost may explains the dismal state of consumer-facing companies in the US today.

As for Twitter, ironically less ads will only make the user experience that much more enjoyable. For Musk, it will also mean that the website will generate far less cash flow, which means that either he will have to dig deep to keep it funded, or he will have to start charging everyone, not just the bluechecks, for access. Whether that is a viable proposition, remains to be seen.

This post was originally published at Zero Hedge

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Is Google Rigging The 2024 Election? The Controversy Over Invisible Republicans

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Omar Marques/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

A new report from the right-leaning Media Research Center concludes that Google is burying search results for 2024 presidential candidates, but an expert in search engine optimization has suggested it’s unlikely.

According to various tests conducted by MRC and Just the News, the online visibility of these sites in generic searches for the GOP’s 2024 bench is practically nil, and not significantly better for RFK Jr., Biden’s primary challenge on the left.

Google’s search engine failed to produce even-handed results in multiple searches performed by MRC Free Speech America over the course of a week prior to today’s Republican presidential primary debate. Researchers broadly searched for “presidential campaign websites” as well as two additional searches specifying the party affiliation of the candidates. When MRC searched for “republican presidential campaign websites,” only two candidates’ websites appeared on the first page in the search results — a Democrat candidate and a Republican who is polling at less than half a percent. -MRC

Both MRC and Senator Ted Cruz claim this is unambiguous proof of Google’s bias.

Google is either the most incompetent search engine on the planet, or it is intentional. This is not a coincidence,” states Dan Schneider, MRC Free Speech America Vice President, following the group’s extensive analysis of search tests conducted between September 20 and 25.

This is ABSURD.

Blatant election interference. #GoogleCensorship https://t.co/qfcSfk1cHx— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) September 27, 2023

In 2018, Trump accused Google of “rigging” search results against him.

Google responded at the time, saying that “Search is not used to set a political agenda and we don’t bias our results toward any political ideology.”

In 2021, the Daily Mail sued Google for ‘illegally building its dominance in ad tech industry by harming rivals, bid-rigging on ad auctions and manipulating news search results.”

And of course, former Alphabet Chairman Eric Schmidt – who said the Trump administration would do “evil things” – was an advisor to the 2016 Clinton campaign.

A simple matter of SEO?

While the evidence certainly looks damning, Just the News spoke with Eric Goldman, an SEO researcher and co-director of Santa Clara University’s High Tech Law Institute, who proposed several benign possibilities to explain these search anomalies. Goldman argues for the necessity of a comprehensive academic study into search engine indexing and ordering, terming MRC’s tests an “advocacy stunt”.

“Search engine indexing and ordering is the kind of topic that would benefit from a proper academic study, not an advocacy stunt,” he said.

Yet, Google also told Just the News that it couldn’t explain the replicated results until Friday.

Meanwhile, Google, the world’s dominant search engine, is grappling with a Justice Department antitrust trial. The company’s explanations of its search dominance have raised eyebrows, bringing more scrutiny upon its practices. With accusations flying, former Psychology Today editor-in-chief Robert Epstein states, “Google poses a serious threat to democracy.”

This post was originally published at Zero Hedge

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Elon Musk Has Fired Most Of Twitter’s ‘Election Integrity’ Team

Says they were “undermining election integrity”

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Steve Watson

Nathan Howard/Getty Images

Twitter/X owner Elon Musk has fired most of a team at Twitter that was supposedly in charge of maintaining ‘election integrity’, stating that in reality they were doing the exact opposite.

Musk commented on a post from X News Daily, noting that the head of the team was fired, stating “Oh you mean the “Election Integrity” Team that was undermining election integrity? Yeah, they’re gone.”

According to reports some of the U.S. election integrity team were based in Dublin.

A recent blog post with regards to election integrity states “You may not use X’s services for the purpose of manipulating or interfering in elections or other civic processes, such as posting or sharing content that may suppress participation, mislead people about when, where, or how to participate in a civic process, or lead to offline violence during an election.”

It adds that “Any attempt to undermine the integrity of civic participation undermines our core tenets of freedom of expression and as a result, we will apply labels to violative posts informing users that the content is misleading.”

It appears that Musk believed the election integrity team were promoting the opposite of integrity at X.

Musk has downsized X’s workforce by a whopping 80% since he took over, meaning that there are no more latte sipping TikTok trendies with made up job titles working there.

The post added that “Not all false or untrue information about politics or civic processes constitutes manipulation or interference. In the absence of other policy violations, the following are generally not in violation of this policy: inaccurate statements about an elected or appointed official, candidate, or political party; organic content that is polarizing, biased, hyperpartisan, or contains controversial viewpoints expressed about elections or politics; discussion of public polling information; voting and audience participation for competitions, game shows, or other entertainment purposes; using X pseudonymously or as a parody, commentary, or fan account to discuss elections or politics.”

Meanwhile, Musk posted a link to a video earlier this week that highlights Fauci and others making false claims about the COVID 19 vaccine:

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    EU Chief Boasts About Vaccine Passports, Calls For More Global Digital Collaboration – Paving The Way For Digital IDs

    Von der Leyen audaciously proclaimed our collective future to be digital.

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    Ken Macon | Reclaim the Net

    Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

    With an ominous call for increased global collaboration and centralization, European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen at a G20 Summit session, dubbed “One Future,” today appealed for an international regulatory body for Artificial Intelligence and digital ID systems similar to coronavirus vaccine passports.

    Von der Leyen audaciously proclaimed our collective future to be digital, hence the implied necessity for global entities to draw boundaries and enforce regulations.

    Von der Leyen, in her position as the EU Commission President, touched on AI and the digital landscape in her address. She acknowledged the potential dangers and gargantuan opportunities linked with advancing AI technology and emphasized the importance of channeling such explosive technology.

    “Today I want to focus on AI and digital infrastructure. As it has been described, AI has risks but also offers tremendous opportunities. The crucial question is how to harness a rapidly changing technology.

    “In the EU, in 2020, we presented the first-ever law on artificial intelligence. We want to facilitate innovation while building trust. But we need more. What the world does now will shape our future. I believe that Europe — and its partners — should develop a new global framework for AI risks,” von der Leyen said.

    Von der Leyen praised the European Union’s move in 2020 to introduce the first legal framework on AI, a step taken with the intent of fostering innovation alongside trust. However, she insisted that this wasn’t sufficient. She suggested a multinational adoption of a coping mechanism for managing AI risks.

    The EU Chief also stressed that globally accepted standards must be created under the purview of the United Nations, akin to their Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Humanity stood to benefit, she argued, if an international authority could clarify the risks and rewards related to AI, akin to the IPCC for climate concerns.

    Concurrently, von der Leyen championed the concept of digital public infrastructure similar to the coronavirus passport system – a system developed by the EU as a response to the Covid saga. The World Health Organization embraced it with open arms as a global standard for combating health threats.

    “Many of you are familiar with the COVID-19 digital certificate. The EU developed it for itself. The model was so functional and so trusted that 51 countries on 4 continents adopted it for free. Today, the WHO uses it as a global standard to facilitate mobility in times of health threats,” von der Leyen continued.

    Alarmingly, von der Leyen praised the EU’s strides towards a bloc-wide digital identity app capable of storing a citizen’s personal information, including credit cards, driver’s license, and passport data.

    These developments ring alarm bells for individuals and nations valuing free speech and privacy.

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