Volkswagen, General Motors and Alyssa Milano Boycott Twitter
All brands under the Volkswagen Group had been advised to hit the brakes on paid advertising on Twitter following Elon Musk’s takeover of the platform in late October. This would include the VW, Audi, Lamborghini, Bentley, Seat and Cupra brands. According to a Group spokesperson, all the brands are heeding the advice.
Audi had decided to take it a step further and even stopped “organic” activities, which means they stopped posting any tweets and their only activity on the platform now is responding to customer queries. Prior to 1st November 2022, Audi had been tweeting almost daily.
Since Musk’s acquisition, Twitter has been making headlines and most of them do not cast Musk nor the platform in positive light. Almost half of the workforce were abruptly let go and Musk is trying to convince users to buy into a subscription-based model ($US8 for the “verified” checkmark and other premium features) amidst falling revenues.
Perhaps the most controversial move was when Musk reinstated Donald Trump’s account; the former president of USA had his account banned following the US Capitol attack “due to the risk of further incitement of violence”. This is in spite of an earlier promise to form a Content Moderation Council before reinstating any account, which has yet to happen. Musk also tweeted an article that expounded an unfounded theory about the attack on Paul Pelosi, husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi; the tweet and article have since been deleted.
Following Musk’s Twitter antics, a group of civil rights leader wrote to CEOs of major companies the likes of Apple, Coca-Cola and Disney to urge them to halt ad spending on the platform. This is a problem for Twitter because 90% of their revenue comes from advertising.
Apple has mostly stopped advertising on Twitter. Do they hate free speech in America?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 28, 2022
Volkswagen is not the only auto company that are adopting a wait-and-see approach to the popular social media site. General Motors too have appeared to have stopped all activities across Twitter although none have official said it was because of Musk—the timeline, however, does suggest that it is.
According to MIT Technology Review, Twitter has lost over 1 million users since Musk came on board—877,000 accounts were deactivated and a 497,000 were suspended between 27 October and 1 November.
Musk’s Twitter woes in at least a small way are affecting his other brands. Actress Alyssa Milano, former child star of Who’s the Boss fame and the object of many now grown-ups’ childhood crush, said she had returned her Tesla in protest of “hate and white supremacy”. Although, she also added that she swapped it with a VW and many were quick to point out to the actress the irony in that.
