Media Matters Threatens Elon Musk With Advertiser Boycott of Twitter
Media Matters pioneered the poisonous tactic of pressuring advertisers to deplatform and damage media opponents, and targets Musk with 24 other groups. Musk responds: “Who funds these organizations that want to control your access to information? Let’s investigate …”
Media Matters has perfected the tactic of attacking media opponents by using advertisers as a pressure point, trying to defund and deplatform particularly conservatives.
It’s just a portion of the poisonous tactics of David Brock, who is never short on “dark” money or new ways to pollute our politics, something we recently explored, Dem Operative David Brock To Launch Attack On Republican Election Lawyers: “make them toxic in their communities and in their firms”.
We explored this tactic back in 2012, when Media Matters astroturfed the Limbaugh secondary boycott:
The secondary boycott of Rush Limbaugh advertisers is portrayed in the media as a reaction to a groundswell of public outrage. In fact, the secondary boycott was initiated by and driven by Media Matters, which had a “Stop Limbaugh” campaign on the shelf waiting to be used, and was executed by Angelo Carusone, Director of Online Strategy for Media Matters.
Carusone was the person behind online efforts against Glenn Beck even before joining Media Matters in 2010, and also is behind Stop Fox News and Stop Limbaugh efforts. His role appears to be going after advertisers, and getting others to do so via Twitter and other online media.
Carusone now is the President and CEO of Media Matters, and he’s still up to his favorite tactic, this time targeting Elon Musk and Twitter:
It’s part of a broader campaign led by Media Matters and some of the newer advertiser-pressure groups, as CNN reports, Brands should force Twitter to uphold content policies under Musk, advocacy groups say:
Some of the nation’s biggest brands including Coca-Cola (CCEP), Disney (DIS) and Kraft (KHC) are facing calls to boycott Twitter if the company’s soon-to-be owner, billionaire Elon Musk, rolls back content moderation policies limiting hate speech and election misinformation.
In a letter sent to brands Tuesday ahead of the 2022 NewFronts digital advertising conference, more than two dozen civil society groups said marketers should secure commitments from Twitter to retain its most critical policies, including on civic integrity and hateful conduct, and threaten to withdraw funding if Twitter does not comply.
“As top advertisers on Twitter (TWTR), your brand risks association with a platform amplifying hate, extremism, health misinformation, and conspiracy theorists,” the letter said, adding: “Your ad dollars can either fund Musk’s vanity project or hold him to account.” …
Some of the nation’s biggest brands including Coca-Cola (CCEP), Disney (DIS) and Kraft (KHC) are facing calls to boycott Twitter if the company’s soon-to-be owner, billionaire Elon Musk, rolls back content moderation policies limiting hate speech and election misinformation.
As advertisers prepare to negotiate forward-looking contracts with Twitter this week during the NewFronts conference, they can preemptively protect themselves from any damage to their brands resulting from Musk’s eventual takeover, said Angelo Carusone, CEO of Media Matters for America, one of the organizations behind the letter.
“If Elon Musk comes in and gets rid of all the brand safety protections, I think Coca-Cola should be able to cancel their contract,” Carusone said. “It would be very revealing if Twitter refuses to or does not sign or does not give those cancellation options.”
Tuesday’s letter targeted other big-name advertisers, as well, including Apple, Best Buy and HBO — the last of which is owned by WarnerMedia, CNN’s parent. Spokespeople for the brands didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.Other organizations spearheading the letter campaign include the technology advocacy organization Accountable Tech and the feminist group UltraViolet. Meanwhile, the Center for Countering Digital Hate, the National Hispanic Media Coalition and the digital rights group Free Press also signed the letter in support of the effort.
The letter is a full frontal and personal attack on Musk:
Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter will further toxify our information ecosystem
and be a direct threat to public safety, especially among those already most
vulnerable and marginalized.
Many of the 25 groups on the list are funded by Soros-related entities and teachers unions:
Many of the groups that signed the letter have been financially backed by George Soros’ Open Society Foundations and teachers’ unions, including the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and National Education Association (NEA).
Musk is not amused and is calling for an investigation of who is funding the campaign:
Who funds these organizations that want to control your access to information? Let’s investigate …https://t.co/dBFsGjOMC8
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 3, 2022
Interesting. I wonder if those funding these organizations are fully aware of what the organizations are doing. https://t.co/YzVZIvF68E
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 4, 2022
Media Matters and various hangers-on has been at this for over a decade. While they have not been successful — their campaign to destroy Fox News failed miserably — they have hurt a lot of people along the way. Which seems to be something they enjoy.
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Comments
Freedom Lover: There should be free speech on the internet
Leftist: Get your own platform, loser
Freedom Lover: Ok, just bought Twitter
Leftist: YOURACISTNAZIBIGOT
IHATEYOU
YOUNEEDTOBEBANNEDFROMEARTH
Trumpinulumpizure
“Musk responds: ‘Who funds these organizations that want to control your access to information? Let’s investigate …'”
Start with the Council on Foreign Relations, aka NWO Central.
Then work your way through all the big non-profits pushing for a no-border world.
If I were Musk, I’d start by buying Carusone and Brock’s home mortgages at a premium.
And dox them and their family members.
When a dragon begins to theaten a village, a town, an entire community, a country, there remains but one way to stop it.
He has flamethrower, so….
He called out media matters. Question, can he kill 2 birds with 1 stone??
I do believe Governor DeSantis figured out how to handle companies who take sides. Was pretty effective I’d say. Elon doesn’t seem to worried about them.
Now it’s up to the stockholders to learn from him. I’ve been voting my shares against most of the boards and FOR any proposal that says the company must print out it’s political donations both company and directors.
I started doing some checks on nominees a couple years ago and was astonished at how many donations were made to liberals.
I think it was the obama corruption with probably a lot of threats to the companies. Put our people on your boards or the doj will make your life miserable.
As an added insult to them I don’t let the bar code show through the window in the back of the return envelope and I add F*** ESG. Little thing but if enough people start doing it….
It seems to me that these guys are over the tortious inference line, and that Musk has both the mentality and the resources to crush them.
Especially when he gets their shareholders on board.
Extortion by media matters in attempting to coerce public companies to boycott Twitter ad buys lest they themselves be targeted in turn by media matters? Might be a stretch but given our litigious society and permissive judiciary it might work in the right venue.
The same thing immediately occurred to me. These noxious little garbage people need to be taught a very costly lesson.
I’m so glad “cancel culture” is just a right-wing fantasy. I was getting worried there for a second.
If a public company follows the Soros pied piper and removes their advertising from Twitter their shareholders should sue the officers personally for acting in direct opposition to their fiduciary responsibilities.
Let the minority ‘boycott’. Who cares?
Musk has to care, if he’s to make any money from his investment.
I take it you didn’t get the memo.
https://news.yahoo.com/elon-musk-says-twitter-offer-182952580.html
“Elon Musk said his offer to buy Twitter is not a way to “make money,” but rather part of an effort to try to change the platform to be an “inclusive arena for free speech.”
“I think it’s very important for there to be an inclusive arena for free speech,” Musk said Thursday during an interview at the TED 2022 conference.
“Twitter has become sort of the de facto town square, so it’s really important that people have both the reality and the perception that they’re able to speak freely within the bounds of the law,” he added…”
Musk didn’t get all that F.U. money by being stupid. He’s no doubt ten steps ahead of Brock.
Still, that’s a lot of money to invest without getting a return. Even if his purpose is philanthropy, he should expect to get something back.
Oh. It’s a lot of money. He should expect something back. What are you, his mother-in-law?
You never know who will join Twitter after Elon makes it a more open platform. Maybe some of us here will join in and support Elon, free to post our different points of view. I know that I will. The leftist thugs aren’t the only ones that can use whatever influence they have to make a change.
There is a meaningful difference between fascists and democrats–The name.
Prefected or perfected?
He should just buy Media Matters.
I would rather see him crush Media Matters and the people behind it.
I doubt it’s for sale. (Though Brock is. Remember he used to be a right-winger until Soros bought his soul.)
These ghouls have no soul.
So now Coca Cola has to stop advertising on the most visited and used social platform in the world? How will they keep America obese? Their products are among the most toxic for ruining our health. Nothing but sugar and useless chemicals.
Let’s plaster THAT message with PSAs on Twitter instead.
They have a pretty good set of milk products, though. I notice, however, they are very careful not to have any Coca-Cola markings on it.
I stopped buying all Coca Cola products after they wet their pants about the Georgia voter integrity law. Apolitical Shasta Cola does the job for this moderate soda drinker.
They won’t have to worry long. Remember?
Musk is going to buy them so he can put the cocaine back in.
I’m all for civility in the public arena of competing ideas, but David Brock is one of those lowlifes who needs to have the ever living shit kicked out of him.
Peacefulness is only works when all sides are peaceful. Civility only works when all sides are civil. Following the rules only works when all sides follow the rules. It’s just fine to stomp people like David Brock.
Yes indeed. One set of standards for all and when a member one ‘side’ deviates and the other members of that ‘side’ refuse to condemn the deviation then the deviation becomes the new standard.
No more Calvin ball.
If companies stop advertising on liberal platforms, how will I know what to boycott?
There is merit in making a lot for the crap they sell for ourselves, then we can have healthier and better tasting snacks and food.
Golly that sounds awfully coercive and blackmaily if you ask me. Should be some legal issues with that eh?
I invite some legal commentary. Why does every press account of extortion describe it as blackmail? In most cases it is not. Blackmail is a specific form of extortion, and in most popular stories it is nowhere in evidence.
I hope he opens up the platform, but the exercise of free speech shouldn’t be decided by dueling billionaires.
Then who should decide? The government?!
The majority of white men who are not on any form of public assistance by choice.
An ironic question, given that “dueling governments” are in fact “dueling billionaires.”
I’m betting that the day he takes over is the day that Apple and Google start moving to take Twitter off their respective app stores.
How much of that can they do before their app stores start becoming irrelevant?
Removing it off Apple will be an issue for iphone users. But, since they like paying more for less, I don’t have a problem with that.
Android phones, on the other hand, have the ability to download apps from places other than the Play store. You just have to deactivate a setting, download the app, active the setting again and you’re done.
“Apple and Google” 2 things I never use.
That is ok.
There will be new clients to be had.
I note that Conservative voices on Twitter are seeing an across-the-board groundswell of followers.
This could be from Musk stepping in, and it could also be Censors pulling back.
Either way, hundreds of thousands of new followers per day, cumulatively…
That is a growing market.
Get woke, go broke.
Elon will make money on this without even trying.
If that clown Angelo Carusone is in charge then there is nothing to worry about as he was so successful in boycotting Rush and Beck.
The only successful boycott he was involved in was the one on Air America. They cratered and left the public sphere within a few years. /sarc
I appreciate what Elon Musk is doing. We need to stop lamenting that the leftist thugs in politics and media use their positions and resources to try to effect their agenda. Fight back. If you have a position of authority, then use it in a principled manner to change society in ways that you feel will make it better. I have influence over hiring at my firm. If I do an interview and I think that the candidate is some woke asshole, I do everything I can to make sure they get no job offer. If I have somebody working for me that behaves like a woke asshole, I try to get them fired or demoted. If I find myself working for a woke boss or woke client, I make it my business to fuck with them at every opportunity. If I have a choice between businesses that are good citizens or businesses that are woke and corrupt, I choose for me and my firm to do business with the former and not the latter. Live your convictions every day. You don’t placate evil, you don’t tolerate evil, you fight it. The leftists aren’t fucking around, Neither am I and neither should you.