Fake Ads Flooding X (Formally Twitter) With Fake Money‽
I know the ad situation with X (formally Twitter) is currently awful, but I did not think it was this bad.
Elon Musk’s X, formerly known as Twitter, has in the past couple of months been inundated with a wave of ads for porn sites and fake luxury goods. That might sound like a low-priority problem for X, as these ads—no matter how sketchy—could in theory bring in much-needed ad revenue.
The problem is that the flood of ad spam, as insiders refer to it, has coincided with a surge in credit card firms asking X for refunds on unauthorized transactions. That indicates that at least some of the spam ads are paid for with stolen cards, say people familiar with the situation, which means X doesn’t get to keep any money generated from the ads. (The Information)
@ErinKWoo@twitter.com elaborates more in her article on The Information (subscription required) & it appears that Elon Musk lacks the personnel to sift through the ad spam afflicting X effectively.
Another issue is that many democratic republics worldwide will elect new leaders or re-elect incumbents, which means that various political parties & foreign actors will attempt to use social networks (including X) to influence populations at the ballot box.
We will probably witness autocratic regimes & nationalist political parties attempt to flood X with controversial or sensational ads worldwide to advance their agenda of authoritarianism across the planet.
Circling back to X, my theory is that 2024 will be the last year X is influential as a micro-blogging site, as the centralized cess pool is replaced by the decentralized Fediverse by the end of the year.
👨🏾💻 by @darnell@darnellclayton.com 🔛 @darnell@darnell.day
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