According to Elon Musk, Apple has “fully resumed” advertising on Twitter. The billionaire made the comment during a Twitter Spaces conversation he broadcast from his private plane on Saturday evening. On November 28th, Musk claimed Apple had “mostly stopped advertising on Twitter” and threatened to remove the platform’s iOS client from the App Store. Two days after that, Musk said he met with Tim Cook. “We resolved the misunderstanding about Twitter potentially being removed from the App Store,” he posted. “Tim was clear that Apple never considered doing so.” On Saturday, Musk added Apple was the largest advertiser on Twitter.
Amazon also had plans to advertise on Twitter again, with reports from Platformer saying the company has committed to spending approximately $100 million per year, “pending some security tweaks.” During the first week of the World Cup in Qatar, Twitter only made about 20 percent of the ad revenue it expected to, according to The Times.
Twitter continues to try to win back its army of advertisers while wrestling with a different approach to free speech: Musk’s “general amnesty” to users that haven’t broken rules. The social network recently restored the account of Andrew Anglin, one of America’s most notorious neo-Nazis. He then tweeted a defense of Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West. “Saying you love Hitler is not even a big deal,” Anglin said, referencing Ye’s recent InfoWars interview with Alex Jones. This reinstatement comes in the same week Twitter suspended Ye for tweeting a photo of the Star of David merged with a swastika.
An estimate by software engineer Travis Brown suggests Twitter has restored as many as 12,000 accounts since October 27th.
– Mat Smith
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Where’s the viable alternative?
This week, we dive into Cherlynn’s review of the Kindle Scribe, Amazon’s first e-reader that captures handwritten notes. Also, Devindra and Cherlynn discuss the rise of new Twitter alternatives, like Hive Social and Post. It looks like many communities are already splintering off to these services, but unfortunately, they can’t yet replicate the magic of Twitter.
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