Elon Musk’s social media platform X has sued a group of advertisers, alleging that a “massive advertiser boycott” deprived the company of billions of dollars in revenue and violated antitrust laws.
  • mercano@lemmy.world
    59·
    6 months ago

    Musk is suing under antitrust laws. I’m not sure they work that way. Antitrust laws prevent producers from consolidating and exploiting consumers. However, when it comes to advertising placements, the companies are consumers, not producers, and I don’t think a consumer advocacy group (which the World Federation of Advertisers functions as in this regard) is illegal.

    I don’t know, I am not a lawyer, but it seems like Twitter is grasping at straws here.

    • RestrictedAccount@lemmy.world
      23·
      6 months ago

      The interesting thing is that it means he is desperate enough to try something that makes him look this stupid

      Anybody with Elon Musk centric stocks needs to sell them quickly

    • jumperalex@lemmy.worldEnglish
      16·
      6 months ago

      I know right? I mean if they colluded to lower advertising prices through collective agreement that would be something. Especially if they had an internal forcing mechanism to ensure compliance.

      But um, they set out voluntary guidelines they suggested everyone follow to protect each member’s own best interests, and decided to spend zero dollars to buy nothing, which is a far far cry from trying to spend zero dollars to buy something.

      What an ultra-maroon.

  • lawrence@lemmy.world
    87·
    6 months ago

    ELI5 by Claude 3.5 Sonnet:

    Imagine you have a big playground where lots of kids come to play and talk. This playground is called X (it used to be called Twitter). One day, some grown-ups who make toys and candy decided they didn’t want to let kids play with their stuff on this playground. They told other grown-ups not to bring their toys there either.

    The person in charge of the playground, Linda, thinks this isn’t fair. She says the playground is better than ever, with more kids playing and having fun.

    Linda is upset because the grown-ups are being mean and not sharing their toys, even though the playground is safe and fun. So now, she’s telling a teacher (which is like a judge for grown-ups) that these people are being unfair and breaking the rules.

    She wants the teacher to make them play fair and bring their toys back to the playground. Linda thinks this will make the playground even better for all the kids who like to play there.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
    981·
    6 months ago

    Suing former advertisers may possibly not be the best way to get other advertisers to come to your platform.

  • Passerby6497@lemmy.worldEnglish
    77·
    6 months ago

    Man who told advertisers to go fuck themselves sues advertisers for not spending money on his platform.

    I’m sure this will be sure to bring in tons of advertising dollars to Der Xitter.

    • bender223@lemmy.todayEnglish
      15·
      6 months ago

      I ain’t no genius, but maybe the advertisers are busy fucking themselves as per Elon’s suggestion. 🤷‍♂️

  • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
    73·
    6 months ago

    Wow, I didn’t think he could top his past idiocy, but this is pretty impressive. “You were unfair to me because I’m a terrible piece of shit and you didn’t want the association of your brand and my nazi site so you owe me money!” It’s just incredible.

    Hat tip, Lonnie. You’ve outdone yourself again.

  • Pennomi@lemmy.worldEnglish
    165·
    6 months ago

    Ah yes, suing your customers is a brilliant way to get more people to buy your stuff.

  • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
    27·
    6 months ago

    Didn’t he sue another company that did tests on the site to see if ads would show up beside hateful content, which showed they would, and that case ended up being dismissed?