Elon Musk Appeals To Twitter Advertisers At Virtual Town Hall: 'We Obviously Don't Want Bad Things Next To Ads'

New Twitter CEO Elon Musk spoke to the more than 2,900 advertising partners of the social media platform on Wednesday, amid mounting concerns that Musk's leadership would facilitate the spread of false information and hate speech.

What Happened: Many companies, including the Volkswagen Group VWAPY and others, joined in suspending their Twitter advertising due to worries that their promotions would run alongside offensive material.

“We obviously don’t want bad things next to ads,” Musk told advertisers, while explaining that Twitter is actively changing its algorithm to show relevant ads attached to suggested tweets.

“I understand if [advertisers] want to kind of, you know, give it a minute and kind of see how things are evolving. But really, you know, the best way to see how things are evolving is just use Twitter,” Musk mentioned to advertisers who paused their spending on the platform.

Also Read: Advertisers Are Secretly Fearing Twitter With Musk At The Helm - And He Needs Them

With hate speech and negative content being of the utmost concern, Twitter will introduce new concepts and frameworks for content moderation.

The company’s focus is on how can it can enable as much free speech as possible, while preventing the potential harmful impacts of speech viewed as hateful.

“There’s a difference between freedom of speech, and freedom of reach,” Musk said, describing how hate speech must be accepted on the platform to some extent but that it won't be amplified.

“My observation of Twitter over the past few weeks is that the content is actually improving, not getting worse,” he added.

Musk said that Twitter is supporting its advertising partners by developing new code and algorithms that will affect how their advertisements are displayed and make them more timely and relevant.

“We’re approaching it like, how do we get the ad to be as close to content as possible? If you’re shown an opportunity to buy something you actually want, that’s great — that’s the content, you’re serving someone’s need,” he said.

Musk indicated that the new verification process would require everyone, including brands, to pay $8 per month for a Twitter Blue subscription in order to maintain their blue-check verification.