The IT Nerd

CBC News is reporting that the Canadian Government has been told by the agency Cossette” to pause advertising on Twitter:

Cossette, which is the government’s “media agency of record,” issued guidance Friday to “pause activity immediately and monitor the situation over the weekend” due to “unknown continuity plans for moderation” and a “heightened risk of brand safety,” according to an internal document seen by CBC News.

Cossette helps with “media planning and strategizing, media buying, ad serving and trafficking, ad verification, reporting and reconciliation services, to support a variety of government initiatives.” It works with numerous government agencies and departments.

I pinged a couple of clients of mine who are in the advertising space and asked them how common this sort of guidance it is. Their answer was that it’s not all that common. In fact they also said that it is also surprising that this guidance has been made public. If you’re Twitter generally or Elon Musk specifically, this has to get your attention as your message of “nothing to see here isn’t working. Maybe he should take this as a big hint that his behaviour and how he manages Twitter needs to change. Otherwise he’s going to be in big trouble. Though I suspect that he’s going to take a different path. As in throw a temper tantrum on Twitter. Thus I am waiting for him to rage Tweet at any time.

Such is the world that we currently live in.

Over the last few days, a number of verified Twitter accounts have taken shots at Elon Musk because his take over of Twitter isn’t exactly popular. These accounts going to the lengths of changing their account names and profile pictures to look like Elon Musk’s Twitter account. Here’s a couple of examples:

Now the account of Chris Wallcraft got suspended by Musk Twitter. But clearly this is getting to Musk. And as a result he posted this late on Sunday:

While I admit that what these people are doing violate Twitter’s terms of service, you have to ask what happened to free speech Elon? Is your skin so thin that you can’t take a joke. Especially when you are looking like a big joke in terms of how you’re running Twitter?

What quickly followed was the hypocrisy of this pronouncement by Musk being pointed out:

And it also points out what’s wrong with his Twitter Blue pipe dream:

This is another example of Musk being unable to deal with critics in an adult manner. I cited an example in this post where he’s blocked people who question him in ways that he doesn’t like. The thing is that if he thinks that this will stop people from taking shots at him, it won’t. It will not only encourage more of this, they will also change their tactics. And then what are you going to do Elon?

Oh wait, it’s already happening. Via a reader of this blog:

That fits the pronouncement that Musk put out in terms of what is allowed. Until he moves the goalposts because he doesn’t like how that’s working, or not working for him. Of course you can always just meme the guy instead:

Is he going to ban any meme that he doesn’t like? And then there’s this:

A simple search finds that there’s lots of these around. Is he going to ban anyone and everyone?

What we’re seeing is Elon melt down in real time on Twitter as it’s becoming increasingly clear to anyone watching that Musk is way over his head and doesn’t know what to do and is likely reconsidering his life choices. That on top of the fact that he’s incredibly thin skinned.

Sucks to be Elon Musk right now.