(CNN) — The exodus from X has overtaken major advertisers.
In recent days, several prominent media brands have not only paused their paid marketing campaigns on the Elon Musk-owned social media platform, but have stopped posting on it altogether, remaining silent on the once-essential site that has sought to be the “digital arena.” “. From the world.
Key accounts for Disney, Paramount, Lionsgate, Sony Pictures, Universal and Warner Bros. are not yet published. Discovery (CNN’s parent company) was on the platform about 10 days ago, following Musk’s alarming endorsement of the anti-Semitic conspiracy theory, which he still supports. He didn’t apologize.
Neither studio commented when requested by CNN. But people familiar with Paramount and WBD’s social media strategies confirmed on the condition of anonymity that this is no coincidence: Both companies made the active decision to stop publishing under certain handles on X due to concerns, including brand safety.
The X ban extends beyond these companies’ corporate accounts, in some cases. For example, high-profile Disney affiliate accounts stopped working and instead, these brands moved to competitor Threads, owned by Meta, where they began actively posting.
For example, when “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” shared the news on Monday that host Stephen Colbert would be off the air this week due to appendicitis, the show did so on Threads. However, before Musk endorsed an anti-Semitic post, Colbert’s show was primarily active on X, where he regularly posted videos and other content. Now the opposite is happening.
When CNN reached out to a representative for X for comment on Monday, he did not directly respond to questions about the media giants losing the platform, which should ring alarm bells within the social media company. It’s bad enough for a struggling company to run out of advertising revenue. Worse still, it also lacks content, especially from local entities that have helped make the platform a hub of real-time discussion for years.
It is possible, of course, that these companies will change course in the future and resume publishing and even advertising on the platform. This wouldn’t be the first time this has happened after advertisers fled a media en masse. But it’s also possible that it won’t happen.
With Musk at the helm for the foreseeable future, overseeing critical decisions that have led to a rise in hate speech (while also personally contributing to the terrible rhetoric), the risk-versus-reward calculus regarding whether or not to engage with the company has fallen into a tailspin. The situation is no different than when Tucker Carlson permanently kicked most of his advertisers from the 8pm slot on Fox News during his time on the network.
If more companies and other high-profile figures abandon Musk’s platform for other social networks, it will extinguish the appeal they once had, providing another reason for ordinary users to abandon the troubled platform.
“Every day, more brands are waking up to the reality that Twitter is dead and X is a cesspool,” said Casey Newton of Platformer. “The global stage is now spread across many different platforms, and increasingly the most important conversations are taking place elsewhere.”
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