Louis Jones quoted by CNBC after Trust & Safety resignations from Elon Musk's Twitter

Brand Safety Institute CMO, Louis Jones, was quoted by CNBC in a piece about the latest brand safety turmoil at Elon Musk's Twitter.

The article, "Elon Musk and Twitter face growing brand-safety concerns after execs depart", follows several high-level departures from Twitter's Trust and Safety team at the end of last week. 

On Thursday, Twitter’s vice president of trust and safety, Ella Irwin, resigned from the company. Following Irwin’s departure, the company’s head of brand safety and ad quality, A.J. Brown, reportedly left, as did Maie Aiyed, a program manager who worked on brand-safety partnerships.

Despite Musk's claims to the contrary, Jones gave CNBC the low-down on the how advertisers view the platform at this moment.

Louis Jones, a longtime media and advertising executive who now works at the Brand Safety Institute, said it’s not clear how many advertisers have resumed spending but that “many advertisers remain on pause, as Twitter has limited reach compared to some other platforms.”

Jones said many advertisers are waiting to see how levels of “toxicity” and hate speech on Twitter change as the site appears to slant toward more right-wing users and as the U.S. election season draws near. He said one big challenge for brands is that Musk and Twitter haven’t made clear what they count in their measurements assessing hate speech, spam, scams and bots.

This tracks with what Jones has been saying since Musk first bought Twitter: "there is a strong sense of PAUSE across the industry, as some wait to see if Twitter can rebound from these early gaffes."

Sadly, Jones' advice at that time is still applicable now. "Conventional wisdom is leading many to "sit it out" until signals and steps become much clearer, and with a more positive cadence. This will take time, and time is not playing in Twitter’s favor at the moment. If you must…proceed with extreme caution."

You can read more of Jones' thoughts, and see all of the Brand Safety Institute's coverage of the marketing situation at Twitter in our special MarketPulse section, Twitter and Brand Safety.

Photo by Joshua Hoehne on Unsplash