Companies are ignoring Twitter

And many companies are stopping advertising on the social media platform Twitter. Car maker Volkswagen has stopped advertising after drugmaker Pfizer, snack maker Mondelez and food maker General Mills have already decided to do so. Ads are an important part of Twitter’s business model.

The ad freeze is related to Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter. Advertisers worry that Musk is loosening the rules on permitted and prohibited expression to the point that their ads are surrounded by unwanted messages such as hate speech.

Also Read | Musk announced the mass layoffs in an email to Twitter employees

Other companies have stopped advertising on Twitter due to uncertainty within the company as a large number of senior executives have left or been fired. This happened in the marketing and sales departments of the news service, among others.

Volkswagen, Europe’s largest carmaker, has instructed all its brands not to advertise via Twitter for the time being. The Volkswagen Group also includes brands such as Audi, Seat, Porsche and Bentley. The German manufacturer wants to be the first to see which way Twitter goes.

Also Read | Elon Musk assures Brussels that Twitter adheres to EU code of conduct

Heineken

Several large Dutch companies could not immediately say whether they are adjusting their marketing activities on Twitter. Beer maker Heineken has announced that it has stopped advertising on Twitter for a long time because it can better reach ‘Heineken fans’ on Instagram and Facebook. The same applies to other brands of the group such as Amstel.

Twitter’s revenue has fallen sharply in recent days, new owner and CEO Elon Musk has acknowledged. Big companies have temporarily stopped advertising on social media. Musk blames ‘activists’ for this.

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“Twitter has experienced a massive drop in revenue due to activist groups putting pressure on advertisers, and while tracking of posts hasn’t changed, we’ve done everything we can to please activists,” Musk wrote in a tweet. ‘This is craziness! They are trying to destroy free speech in America.