Only minutes after X chief executive Linda Yaccarino pitched marketers to spend more with X at the CES event in Las Vegas, billionaire entrepreneur and TV personality Mark Cuban rebuked her with a stinging attack, according to a report in AdAge.
Yaccarino attended an invite-only event on the sidelines of CES to convince advertisers to spend more on Elon Musk’s platform, arguing that brands should want to be in a conversation that is “healthier and more factual.”
Her CES charm offensive comes more than two years since Musk bought the platform and slashed its safety and content moderation teams, leading to a proliferation of hate speech, harmful content, conspiracy theories and increasingly far-right propaganda to thrive.
Advertisers responded by fleeing the platform en masse, causing X to haemorrhage nearly half of its advertising revenue.
Cuban, who made his money through websites such as broadcast.com and was one of the original sharks on Shark Tank, reportedly took to the stage unexpectedly as Yaccarino walked out of the conference hall.
“You don’t have to go to Pornhub, you can go to X and you can be 13 years old,” he said.
Cuban was contrasting government attempts to crack down on online pornography while X is allowed to spread harmful online content.
He said that he also notices antisemitic posts on X on a daily basis and questioned whether that is the sort of ‘free speech’ advertisers would want.
Finally, Cuban took a swipe at X’s Community Notes system of user-led content moderation, questioning whether “the world’s biggest troll”, aka Musk, would set the rules.
This week, Meta revealed it would follow X’s lead by abandoning its fact checking operation in favour of a Community Notes approach.
Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg hailed X’s Community Notes in the announcement, which has been met with alarm by adland leaders in Australia and beyond.
