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Twitter head of trust and safety Ella Irwin resigned Thursday evening, per multiple sources, after owner Elon Musk publicly rebuked his own staff over a content moderation decision.

Catch up quick: Twitter staff had decided that a video titled "What is a Woman?" by the Daily Wire's Matt Walsh, a far-right personality who often attacks transgender people, violated the platform's hate-speech rules.

Twitter had recently announced a content deal with the Daily Wire.

When Daily Wire's Jeremy Boreing tweeted a complaint about the decision, saying that the video was barred because it included instances of misgendering, Musk replied: "This was a mistake by many people at Twitter."

The big picture: Musk last month announced he'd hired a new CEO for Twitter, NBCU's Linda Yaccarino, but she has not yet started in the role.

Musk has said he wants to make Twitter a haven for free speech, but his erratic decision-making on content rules has alarmed advertisers, angered activists, and kept the company in a state of disarray.

Between the lines: In April, Twitter quietly dropped references in its hate speech policy to misgendering and deadnaming of trans people, but its policy still bars users from "directly" attacking others "on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, caste, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease."

Irwin's predecessor, Yoel Roth, one of the few executives from Twitter's previous era who tried to work with Musk, left the company in November 2022.

Twitter loses another trust and safety head

The latest exec to quit Twitter comes after a controversy over a Daily Wire video that misgenders trans people.

Illustration of the Twitter bird logo with emoji side eyes

Twitter

Elon Musk Twitter account seen on Mobile with Elon Musk in the background on screen, seen in this photo illustration. On 19 February 2023 in Brussels, Belgium. 

Twitter head of trust and safety Ella Irwin resigned Thursday evening, per multiple sources, after owner <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="Elon Musk" data-vars-click-url="https://www.axios.com/economy-business/elon-musk" data-vars-content-id="29c0d446-ef33-42b9-acfc-07763a464a6e" data-vars-headline="Twitter loses another trust and safety head" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.axios.com/economy-business/elon-musk" target="_self">Elon Musk</a> publicly rebuked his own staff over a content moderation decision.Catch up quick: Twitter staff had decided that a video titled &quot;What is a Woman?&quot; by the Daily Wire&#x27;s Matt Walsh, a far-right personality who often attacks transgender people, violated the platform&#x27;s hate-speech rules.

From the Valley to D.C., Big Tech players like Facebook, Google and Amazon are under more scrutiny than ever as new technology develops and privacy and antitrust concerns grow in lockstep with companies’ ambitions.

Technology

After a record economic expansion, the coronavirus pandemic sent the U.S. economy into a recession as unemployment soared to staggering heights. The country now faces urgent questions about how much stimulus is needed for reeling consumers and businesses, and what a recovery might look like.

Economy & Business

Meta on Wednesday threatened to pull news links from Facebook and Instagram in California if state lawmakers moved forward with a bill that would tax them for news content.  

Why it matters: History suggests that it's not an empty threat. Meta pulled news from Facebook in 2021 in response to an Australian law that similarly forced it to pay for news content. It reversed the ban days later after the government agreed to change some of the terms of the law. 

News traffic in Australia plummeted in response to the short-term ban. 

Be smart: Meta has significantly pivoted its algorithms and products away from news in the past few years, in part to avoid regulatory headaches. 

Those changes have significantly lowered traffic to news publishers in the U.S. over the past few years, making efforts to force it to pay for news content less expedient. 

Details: The California Journalism Preservation Act would require companies like Meta and rival Google to pay a tax to the state based on their advertising revenues against news content. That money would be allocated to newsrooms in California.

"If the Journalism Preservation Act passes, we will be forced to remove news from Facebook and Instagram rather than pay into a slush fund that primarily benefits big, out-of-state media companies under the guise of aiding California publishers," Meta said in a statement. 

What they're saying: California lawmakers argue tech platforms should be responsible for providing relief to local outlets whose business models have been decimated in the internet era. 

"Every day, journalism plays an essential role in California and in local communities, and the ability of local news organizations to continue to provide the public with critical information about their communities and enabling publishers to receive fair market value for their content that is used by others will preserve and ensure the sustainability of local and diverse news outlets," the bill reads.

Meta argues that the bill "fails to recognize that publishers and broadcasters put their content on our platform themselves" and that the consolidation in California's news industry happened before Facebook was widely used, according to a statement posted to Twitter by a Meta spokesperson. 

The big picture: Meta and Google have long pushed back on efforts to force them to pay publishers for the content that appears on their platforms, but  governments continue to introduce new laws that would force them to pay. 

In 2019, France became the first EU member state to ratify a copyright law that  forced firms like Meta and Google to pay for content unless they strike distribution agreements themselves with publishers in France. 

That measure, and the Australian law that passed in 2021 has inspired similar measures in other other counties, including Canada and New Zealand, although those bills haven't become official laws yet. 

In the U.S., a bipartisan group in Congress reintroduced a journalism antitrust bill in March that's similar to the one being debated in California for the fourth time in four years. The bill continues to fail at national level, in part because lawmakers can't agree on the terms used to determine which publishers would be eligible for payment. 

Meta threatens to pull news from its apps in California

History suggests that it's not an empty threat.

Photo Illustration by Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Meta (company)

Media

<a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="Meta" data-vars-click-url="https://www.axios.com/2022/07/28/meta-publishers-news-funding-cut" data-vars-content-id="765bd0ae-7664-4d37-aca8-21f88b82714c" data-vars-headline="Meta threatens to pull news from its apps in California" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.axios.com/2022/07/28/meta-publishers-news-funding-cut" target="_self">Meta</a> on Wednesday threatened to pull news links from <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="Facebook" data-vars-click-url="https://www.axios.com/2022/10/14/meta-facebook-ending-support-instant-articles" data-vars-content-id="765bd0ae-7664-4d37-aca8-21f88b82714c" data-vars-headline="Meta threatens to pull news from its apps in California" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.axios.com/2022/10/14/meta-facebook-ending-support-instant-articles" target="_self">Facebook</a> and <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="Instagram" data-vars-click-url="https://www.axios.com/2022/11/01/instagram-paying-attn-create-content-midterms" data-vars-content-id="765bd0ae-7664-4d37-aca8-21f88b82714c" data-vars-headline="Meta threatens to pull news from its apps in California" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.axios.com/2022/11/01/instagram-paying-attn-create-content-midterms" target="_self">Instagram</a> in California if state lawmakers moved forward with a bill that would tax them for news content. Why it matters: History suggests that it&#x27;s not an empty threat. Meta <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="pulled news" data-vars-click-url="https://www.axios.com/2021/02/19/news-traffic-australia-facebook-links" data-vars-content-id="765bd0ae-7664-4d37-aca8-21f88b82714c" data-vars-headline="Meta threatens to pull news from its apps in California" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.axios.com/2021/02/19/news-traffic-australia-facebook-links" target="_self">pulled news</a> from Facebook in 2021 in response to an Australian law that similarly forced it to pay for news content. It <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="reversed the ban" data-vars-click-url="https://www.axios.com/2021/02/23/facebook-australia-news-content-deal" data-vars-content-id="765bd0ae-7664-4d37-aca8-21f88b82714c" data-vars-headline="Meta threatens to pull news from its apps in California" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.axios.com/2021/02/23/facebook-australia-news-content-deal" target="_self">reversed the ban</a> days later after the government agreed to change some of the terms of the law.

The marketing industry has long relied on artificial intelligence to optimize ad campaigns with things like better analytics and targeting, but it has yet to fully reckon with how the recent explosion of generative AI is transforming the creative side of advertising. 

Why it matters: Advertising agencies have a history of growing in response to technological shifts, not shrinking. 

As Brian Wieser, a top advertising analyst, recently noted, the head count at the major advertising holding groups grew by around 80% between 2012 and 2022 — per his estimates — despite the rise of automated marketing meant to make the process more efficient. 

Driving the news: WPP, the largest advertising holding group in the world by revenue, announced a deal Monday with leading AI company NVIDIA. 

WPP artists and designers within the agency will have the ability to integrate 3D content creation with generative AI to make it more personal. 

Code and Theory, a design agency owned by Stagwell, struck a similar type of AI creative partnership with Oracle earlier this month. 

Publicis last week acquired a full stake in Publicis Sapient AI Labs, a joint venture it co-launched in 2020, to "accelerate" its generative AI offerings. 

Omnicom is teaming with Microsoft to test ways it can integrate generative AI into its creative and business solutions. 

By the numbers: AI-enabled marketing today accounts for nearly half (45%) of all advertising globally, according to GroupM, an ad agency within WPP. 

By 2032, AI will influence 90% of all ad revenue — over $1.3 trillion. 

Zoom out: A huge part of the creative transformation of advertising will be rooted in the ability to develop unique images and videos using prompts to describe what's needed, instead of just filtering through stock libraries. 

Generative AI tools will also allow creatives to test infinite iterations of ads to see which is the most engaging. 

Those opportunities will require creative workers to develop new skills. Agencies willing to retrain their workforces will benefit. 

"In the long term, I think our creative — what I would call knowledge workers — will only find their jobs enhanced by the way that we will utilize this five years from now," said John Wren, chair and CEO at Omnicom Group, on an investor call last month. "And so we are very optimistic."

Be smart: The world's largest advertising companies are helping to usher in these changes quickly by introducing new creative solutions for advertisers now.

Google last week debuted a new generative AI tool that allows marketers to personalize creative within shopping ads. 

Meta announced a slew of generative AI-driven creative features earlier this month, including one that allows marketers to generate background images for ads with text inputs. 

Snapchat said in early May it's experimenting with sponsored links in ads, developed by generative AI. 

The big picture: The complexities that come with managing new technologies have the power to strengthen intermediaries — in this case, creative agencies — instead of crushing them, but only if they are quick to adapt. 

"Typically, through any type of change — whether it's like a big technology shift back from the iPhone or social media or even when the economy changes — that's typically a good thing for a company that is in the business of change," said Dan Gardner, executive chair and co-founder of Code and Theory. 

What to watch: Agencies will likely take on bigger roles regarding compliance, accountability and measurement. 

"Advertisers are still responsible for the content of their ads," Google VP of Ads Dan Taylor told Axios last week when discussing Google's new AI features. 

AI-driven ads will "all go through all of our typical policy and copyright checks," he added, meaning there will be many more ads that need to be checked, filtered and accounted for. 

The bottom line: "While it’s hard to predict the future with any precision here, my take is that so long as wise decisions are made by everyone involved, outcomes are probably neutral to positive for the legacy creative agencies," Wieser noted. 

Generative AI comes for advertising

The world's largest advertising companies are helping to usher in these changes quickly by introducing new creative solutions for advertisers now.

Illustration of The Creation of Adam made from artifacted digital code

Media trends

Top Stories

The marketing industry has long relied on artificial intelligence to optimize ad campaigns with things like better analytics and targeting, but it has yet to fully reckon with how the recent explosion of <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="generative AI" data-vars-click-url="https://www.axios.com/2023/03/23/generative-ai-chatgpt-capabilities" data-vars-content-id="8326132b-1d84-41ae-80f7-970f41f4f443" data-vars-headline="Generative AI comes for advertising" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.axios.com/2023/03/23/generative-ai-chatgpt-capabilities" target="_self">generative AI</a> is transforming the creative side of advertising. Why it matters: Advertising agencies have a history of growing in response to technological shifts, not shrinking.

Gov. Ron DeSantis’ rage against CNN and MSNBC — along with former President Trump’s polling lead and distrust of Fox News — has created a deadlock over who will host the rest of the 2024 GOP presidential debates, and uncertainty over whether they'll happen at all. 

Why it matters: Debates can make or break a presidential candidacy. And who hosts those debates can have a significant impact on which contenders chose to participate, and how they perform. 

Trump's campaign believes his opponents need the primary debates more than he does because they're behind him in polls. And Trump — feeling slighted by Fox News' coverage of DeSantis, has indicated that he's wary of the network hosting debates, two sources told Axios.

DeSantis, running second in GOP polling, has been pushing back against the Republican National Committee sanctioning a debate with CNN or NBC News, which are both salivating over the chance to host a 2024 primary debate, sources told Axios.

Driving the news: The debate negotiations — between the networks, campaigns and the RNC — follow CNN’s hotly debated decision to host a primetime town hall event with Trump last month. The town hall drew 3.3 million viewers, and was CNN's second most-viewed single-candidate town hall since 2016.

CNN boss Chris Licht has told the RNC that CNN would air the debate not just on its linear feed, but also potentially on the linear networks of other Warner Bros. Discovery channels, two sources told Axios. By including those channels, Licht has argued, CNN could reach more conservatives than Fox, as well as independent voters.

CNN’s pitch also includes distribution across its digital channels, and possibly streaming. 

Licht also has offered to partner with a conservative-leaning outlet on the debates. That partnership, two sources told Axios, could include giving a journalist from the partner outlet a co-moderator spot. 

NBC News' pitch is being led in part by NBC News Group Chairman Cesar Conde and Carrie Budoff Brown, NBC News' senior vice president for politics. "NBC Nightly News" anchor Lester Holt would moderate the debate, alongside a colleague from sister networks CNBC and Telemundo. 

Holt, sources say, has personally lobbied the RNC for the bid and appeared at the RNC in February and began the presentation with an NBC sizzle reel. 

A source in the room said NBC News pitched distribution across NBC News, MSNBC, Telemundo, CNBC, its streaming service NBC News Now and its digital channels. 

NBC News and Holt were pushing the RNC to consider its bid at the same time longtime MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell acknowledged using "imprecise" language in a question to Vice President Harris that implied DeSantis didn’t want slavery taught in schools. DeSantis said he would boycott NBC News and MSNBC in response.

Fox News has zeroed in on Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum as possible moderators for a debate. 

Trump has not committed to participating in the first RNC debate, to be hosted by Fox News in August.

Still, he is not shying away from engaging with Fox entirely. He appeared at a presidential town hall with Sean Hannity on Thursday. 

The big picture: The RNC also is eager to ensure the debates are as widely viewed as possible. It’s mindful of the production value that networks could bring to the debates.

The RNC reached out early to several conservative outlets. Newsmax and Rumble pitched but others passed because of cost concerns. 

But DeSantis in particular has been wary of places like CNN and NBC even as he has said he is eager for the debates. While not naming the networks, DeSantis told Glenn Beck last week that “corporate media…shouldn’t be involved in our process because they’re hostile to us as Republicans.”

Asked if DeSantis would commit to showing up to the first debate in August with Fox News, a DeSantis spokesperson declined to comment. 

Zoom out: The broadcast networks also submitted bids to the RNC, sources told Axios. 

ABC News has expressed interest in the New Hampshire primary debate, which it co-hosts every year with its New Hampshire affiliate WMUR, in addition to a possible fall debate. 

CBS News has indicated it would prefer to host a debate in 2024, when there presumably will be fewer candidates to wrangle on a stage. 

PBS submitted a bid to the RNC to host a debate, Nick Massella, a spokesperson for PBS NewsHour, confirmed to Axios. 

Data: Axios research; Chart: Naema Ahmed/Axios

The big picture: As television viewing becomes more splintered, political committees are eager to explore new types of partnerships that can maximize viewership. 

Nearly every network has partnered with tech firms to co-host debates during the past decade. Often, they also will partner with local outlets, digital news companies, radio networks or national newspapers to co-moderate debates. 

Facebook, a source told Axios, did not pitch. Nor did Twitter, according to people familiar with the matter. Rumble, a conservative rival to YouTube, is partnering with Fox News on the first debate. 

Politico, which has co-hosted debates in the past, did not participate in the pitching process this year, nor did Axios, sources told Axios. 

A Politico spokesperson told Axios, “POLITICO has robust coverage plans for the debates, is exploring opportunities for ancillary events around them, and is actively engaged in planning for an ambitious and substantial footprint at the conventions in Milwaukee and Chicago.” An Axios spokesperson didn't comment.

The Washington Post submitted a bid, a spokesperson confirmed. 

Editor's note: This story has been corrected to say that NBC News' pitch involved having a moderator from CNBC, rather than MSNBC.

Disclosure: Fischer is a CNN contributor. 

TV networks battle for Republican debates

Debates can make or break a presidential candidacy.

Illustration of two people in suits fighting over a microphone cord in a tug-of-war

Presidential debates

2024 Elections

<a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="Gov. Ron DeSantis" data-vars-click-url="https://www.axios.com/2023/05/24/ron-desantis-florida-governor-us-president-2024" data-vars-content-id="c7c99a9a-2617-4b17-94f2-9e9996970629" data-vars-headline="TV networks battle for Republican debates" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.axios.com/2023/05/24/ron-desantis-florida-governor-us-president-2024" target="_self">Gov. Ron DeSantis</a>’ rage against CNN and MSNBC — along with former President Trump’s polling lead and distrust of Fox News — has created a deadlock over who will host the rest of the 2024 GOP presidential debates, and uncertainty over whether they&#x27;ll happen at all. Why it matters: Debates can make or break a presidential candidacy. And who hosts those debates can have a significant impact on which contenders chose to participate, and how they perform.

President Biden has made the COVID-19 crisis and a post-Trump return to national unity and traditional democratic ideals his top priorities. From vaccinations to stimulus to schools, Biden is seeking bipartisan compromise while showing a willingness to use executive authority and bare Democratic majorities in the U.S. House and Senate to implement his policies. Republican leaders are navigating deep party divisions over if and how to move beyond former President Trump.

Politics & Policy

Pro Rata

Axios Pro Rata

Want to invest in the right-wing blowback to corporate diversity, equity and inclusion efforts? There's a SPAC for that.

Driving the news: It's called Colombier Acquisition Corp., and earlier this year agreed to merge with PublicSq, an online marketplace for companies in what it calls "the patriot economy."

If the deal closes, the combined company's board will include failed U.S. Senate candidate Blake Masters and former Mike Pence strategist Nick Ayers.

Why it matters: This comes at a moment when anti-LGBTQ activists have helped tank stock prices for companies like Anheuser-Busch InBev and Target.

PublicSq, which includes a section titled "Ditch Target 2.0," claims a 30% month-over-month user growth rate (now over 700k) and a 19% month-over-month business growth rate (over 50k) over the past year.

Last week it briefly rose to No. 4 in Apple's App Store, ahead of Amazon and Walmart, although by yesterday it had fallen back to No. 60.

"Any time Target pulls a Target, it's kind of a reminder for our consumers of, 'Hey, there's there's maybe some other options out there that we should pursue,'" PublicSq CEO Michael Seifert tells Axios.

Many of PublicSq's merchants appear to be apolitical, focusing instead on "American-made products," although there also are plenty of offerings like a "pro-life coffee brand."

Data: Yahoo Finance; Chart: Axios Visuals

The big picture: There's nothing new about social or political movements seeking to leverage the power of consumer checkbooks. In recent history, however, it's more commonly come from the other side of the political spectrum.

One other big difference is the role of SPACs, otherwise known as blank-check acquisition companies.

Seifert acknowledges that the overall SPAC market has been a pit of despair, but believes that the relative success of Rumble — a right-leaning alternative to YouTube — shows that SPACs can have niche value for niche companies like his.

Specifically, Rumble had far fewer pre-merger redemptions than most "deSPAC" transactions, and has managed to keep its share price near the $10 par mark. Colombier hasn't gone through the redemption process yet, but has remained above $10 since announcing its PublicSq deal.

The bottom line: It remains unclear if this "anti-woke" movement will really drive consumer behavior, or if it's more limited to social media and stocks.

Disney's top and bottom lines, for example, appear unaffected by the company's Florida fight, and it's tough to believe that people will stop eating Chick-fil-A sandwiches (yes, that Chick-fil-A) because the company named a vice president of DEI.

Once its SPAC merger goes through, however, PublicSq will begin disclosing financials that could give better insights into how much of the bark is bite.

corporate diversity, equity and inclusion

"Anti-woke" movement finds itself an investment vehicle

PublicSq is a digital marketplace that features a section titled "Ditch Target 2.0."

Illustration of a Gadsden flag with the snake wrapped around a blank check. 

Target

Retail

Want to invest in the right-wing blowback to <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="corporate diversity, equity and inclusion" data-vars-click-url="https://www.axios.com/2023/05/17/ceos-racism-dei-edelman" data-vars-content-id="ed242d2b-fa0c-4d46-95d2-4f88341076fa" data-vars-headline="&quot;Anti-woke&quot; movement finds itself an investment vehicle" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.axios.com/2023/05/17/ceos-racism-dei-edelman" target="_self">corporate diversity, equity and inclusion</a> efforts? There&#x27;s a SPAC for that.Driving the news: It&#x27;s called Colombier Acquisition Corp., and earlier this year agreed to merge with PublicSq, an online marketplace for companies in what it calls &quot;the patriot economy.&quot;

Sara Fischer

Stories

TV networks battle for Republican debates

Twitter loses another trust and safety head

Meta threatens to pull news from its apps in California

"Anti-woke" movement finds itself an investment vehicle

Generative AI comes for advertising