It appears like Twitter is having a lot of issues with advertisers. Because of worries about moderation, brands have been removing their advertisements from the platform. More recently, it has been claimed that GroupM, the largest advertising agency in the world, is informing its customers that purchasing ads on the site is “high-risk.”
The recommendation, according to a Digiday story, was included in a document that cautions marketers about the dangers of running advertisements on the social networking site that business mogul Elon Musk recently purchased. According to the document, the designation was made in response to the high number of Twitter executives quitting or being dismissed, the misuse of blue checkmarks on corporate accounts, and Twitter’s potential incapacity to abide by their consent agreement with the government.
Twitter must adhere to the following standards in order to get rid of the high-risk designation:
- a return to the platform’s default levels of NSFW and toxic talk
- Senior IT Security, Privacy, Trust, and Safety personnel replacement
creating internal checks and balances - Complete openness on future community norms, content moderation, and any other matters affecting user security or brand safety
- demonstrated dedication to upholding the current Twitter Rules and effective content moderation (e.g. account impersonation, violative content removal timing, intolerance of hate speech and misinformation)
One of the first things Elon Musk did after buying Twitter was to update the Twitter Blue subscription system. Twitter “has to pay the bills somehow,” according to Musk, and they can’t only rely on advertisements, so he provided users the option to get a verified checkmark for $8 per month.
In order to help users identify between accounts that have been verified using Twitter Blue and accounts that have been verified as official, Twitter later introduced the “Official” tag. The tag was banned within the first 24 hours after its release, but it was later brought back after people started using verified checkmarks to pose as businesses and politicians and post objectionable stuff. To stop the impersonations on the network, Twitter subsequently paused Twitter Blue.