Linda Yaccarino stays the course, but advertisers flee
The X-ray Flare: A Rejoinder for the Anti-Semite Campaign and the Legacy of Freedom and Democracy
I would like you to read and listen to the feedback. There is a vocal minority that is trying to undermine our work. There are vocal supporters and partners who believe in you and the important work you are doing. Hold on to that and keep pushing forward. No critic will ever deter us from our mission to protect free speech.
While some advertisers may have temporarily paused investments because of a misleading and manipulated article, the data will tell the real story. There is no place for discrimination or bigotry anywhere in the world, so we are clear about our efforts to combat it at X.
Let’s keep putting our values to work and lean on one another. I am so proud to be with you all and I will be at the office tomorrow morning.
The Media Matters Case Against Meltdown: A Mother-of-A-Madrazo Enlistment to Bring New Revenue to the Company
According to reports, Yaccarino enlisted her son Matt Madrazo to restart X’s political advertising business, in order to make up for revenue lost when some of the company’s biggest clients paused their investments.
In response, Media Matters’ president Angelo Carusone said, “Elon Musk has spent the last few days making meritless legal threats, elevating bizarre conspiracy theories, and lobbing vicious personal attacks against his ‘enemies’ online. Major brands are hesitant of partnering with X even if he does not follow through with his threat to sue.
Yaccarino, meanwhile, has insisted that advertisers aren’t permanently pulling back their X presence. She said that after the lawsuit she had several good talks and that advertisers may have paused but she wants to go on record. But she suggested employees “be as fiscally responsible as possible” to offset potential losses from advertisers and exhorted them to “by all means, put your heads together to bring new revenue into the company.”
Paxton and X do not argue that Media Matters was false in claiming to see pro-Nazi ads. The suit shows that the videos posted on the organization’s website are real. But it alleges the organization “manipulated” the service to make X serve the offending ads. “Media Matters has manipulated the algorithms governing the user experience on X to bypass safeguards and create images of X’s largest advertisers’ paid posts adjacent to racist, incendiary content, leaving the false impression that these pairings are anything but what they actually are: manufactured, inorganic, and extraordinarily rare.” The alleged manipulation involved creating an account that only followed major brands and was constantly scrolling and refreshing its unrepresentative feed until it saw a confluence of the two.
Nearly simultaneously, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton opened an investigation into Media Matters for “potential fraudulent activity.” Musk stated that there are civil and criminal penalties for fraud. Musk had previously responded to a tweet by former Trump advisor Stephen Miller that suggested conservative attorneys general (like Paxton) look into fraud charges.
