Elon Musk hired safety chiefs for X. Will it actually get safer?

Quick recent history lesson.

Not long after Elon Musk took control of what was then called Twitter in 2022, Yoel Roth left as the social media company’s head of trust and safety. It was all part of the mass chaos after Musk became what he called Chief Twit.

Ella Irwin, who had been with Twitter all of five months, then took over as the head of trust and safety. She lasted in that role for seven months and told NBC News, “It absolutely was the hardest experience that I’ve gone through in my career.”

After Irwin left, nine months went by without anyone in that position, a troubling yet consistent sign of what was happening at X under Musk. As CNN’s Clare Duffy wrote Tuesday, “Since Musk’s takeover, X has walked back safety measures, restored the accounts of White supremacists and other rule violators and declined to remove pro-Nazi content.”

When asked if he was worried about advertisers leaving X because of antisemitic posts he amplified, Musk said at the 2023 DealBook Summit in New York last November, “If somebody’s gonna try to blackmail me with advertising? Blackmail me with money? Go (expletive) yourself. Go (expletive) yourself. Is that clear?”

So on Tuesday, as the company continues to face scrutiny and questions over hate speech, conspiracy theories and other controversial content, X made a surprising announcement. X has named two people to oversee safety on the platform as it, NBC News’ David Ingram wrote, “seeks to rebuild relationships with the advertising industry and trust among users.”

Kylie McRoberts, who has been with the company for four years, is being promoted to head of safety. Yale Cohen, an executive vice president at advertising and public relations firm Publicis Media, joins X as head of brand safety and advertiser solutions.

“But,” Duffy wrote for CNN, “both new leaders could face the same challenge (CEO Linda) Yaccarino has encountered in trying to revive the X brand: Musk himself. Musk has drawn ire for increasingly using his X presence to elevate radical, far-right conspiracy theories, including ‘Pizzagate’ and the racist Great Replacement theory.”

Musk constantly talks about being a champion of “free speech,” but that lack of responsible guardrails on the site has become an issue.

Ingram wrote for NBC News, “Many members of vulnerable groups such as the LGBTQ community have said that X has become toxic under Musk, with harassment and bullying largely unchecked.”

Last month, Musk announced X was dropping the word “trust” from the “Trust and Safety Team” title. He wrote, “Any organization that puts ‘Trust’ in their name cannot (be) trusted, as that is obviously a euphemism for censorship.”

He added, “Trust is something that must be earned. The goal of our Safety team is simply to ensure compliance with the laws that already exist to protect the people.”

So, based on recent history, you can see why Tuesday’s news was met with skepticism.

In an email to staff, Yaccarino said, “When we say safety and freedom of speech can and must coexist on X — we mean it. And the safety team works tirelessly, day and night, across the globe to make that happen.”

I asked my Poynter colleague, Angie Drobnic Holan, director of the International Fact-Checking Network and longtime editor-in-chief of PolitiFact, for her thoughts on X’s announcement.

She told me, “X is a case study in why social media platforms have moderation policies. For most people, it’s a real turn-off to have to wade through conspiracy theories, hoaxes and political misinformation when you’re just going about your business trying to connect with friends, family or colleagues. Advertisers don’t want to deal with it, either, for the same reasons. The fact that Meta could stand up Threads so quickly and compete with X is a testament to the fact that Meta hasn’t abandoned moderation policies. I suspect that Meta knows it makes good business sense to put common-sense checks on the darker impulses of the internet.”

Holan added, “We all have some tolerance for exaggeration, tall tales and hyperbole, and nobody likes censorship. But when a social media company entirely dismantles moderation, things get dark quickly. Most people don’t like to have hate speech pushed out to their feeds, and they don’t think online harassment is a fun way to celebrate the First Amendment.”

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Falling stock

Did you see the news earlier this week that Donald Trump’s social media company, Truth Social, said it lost more than $58 million last year? And that the news sent its stock into a nosedive of more than 21%? And that the company generated only $4.1 million in revenue last year?

Appearing on CNN with Abby Phillip, tech journalist and podcaster Kara Swisher said, “There are no prospects for making money here except as a way to prop up Donald Trump.”

Truth Social went public last month with a company value of more than $7 billion. However, with the stock plunging, Trump’s shares have gone from being worth $5.2 billion to $3.8 billion.

Swisher noted that the social media business is not easy, pointing out that Musk is having financial difficulties with X. But it’s much worse for Trump. As Axios’ Dan Primack pointed out, “… Twitter generated around $665 million in revenue for the year leading into its IPO, and $5.2 billion in the final year before Elon Musk's takeover.”

Swisher said, “If your child had a lemonade stand it would make more money than this. But if people are willing to pay for it, this is what people pay for. It’s inexplicable.”

Author and commentator Paul Waldman wrote for MSNBC: “Trump Truth Social investors are happily getting scammed to own the libs.” Waldman noted that Trump can’t sell his shares for six months unless he gets permission from the board.

He added, “Should Trump dump and run, will his devotees who bought shares feel betrayed? Don’t bet on it. Truth Social as a company and as a stock have little to do with each other, since the stock is basically a way for people to give Trump their money, no matter how small-time the company itself is. No matter how far it falls, there won’t be a wave of Trump supporters saying they got conned into buying it with a broken promise of riches. They have a remarkable ability to explain anything he does, no matter how repugnant, foolish or contradictory, as all part of his plan. If he tripped over a golf ball, fell into a sand trap and landed with his pants around his ankles, they’d say it was a brilliant move meant to drive liberals crazy. Buying shares in a company that will become nearly valueless once he cashes out will be a magnificent sacrifice to his cause.”

Road to nowhere

After Ronna McDaniel was pushed out as chair of the Republican National Committee, she appeared to have a promising future in the media. The belief is several news outlets were interested in bringing her aboard. She ended up with NBC News.

Well, we know how that played out: She did one interview with “Meet the Press,” and there was such backlash from NBC News and MSNBC journalists that her role as a political contributor ended before it even really got started.

So now what?

Mediaite’s Aidan McLaughlin and Diana Falzone write, “Even if she does mount a media comeback, you’re unlikely to see McDaniel on the air anywhere soon.”

There are a few reasons, starting with the fact that she is technically still under contract with NBC. Even if that gets sorted out, who would want her? You could probably rule out CBS and ABC for the same reasons NBC ultimately parted ways with her — there would be a staff revolt over the fact that McDaniel has a credibility problem. That’s mostly because she previously expressed doubts of the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election and, in doing so, enabled Trump in his efforts to fight the results.

CNN’s Oliver Darcy reported CNN boss Mark Thompson said the network never considered hiring McDaniel.

You might think Fox News would be a fit since it caters to conservative viewers. But Trump pushed McDaniel out, so it’s not as if McDaniel would be well-received by MAGA viewers.

One TV executive source told Mediaite, “I can’t imagine Fox would hire Ronna Romney and want to deal with managing her with Trump and his base and invite the inevitable incoming fire they’d be on the receiving end. Her track record of failure at the RNC is not a ratings draw worth the risk.”

That Romney reference was to McDaniel’s uncle, Mitt Romney, the Utah Republican senator and former Republican presidential candidate — who is no fan of Trump, and vice versa.

In the end, McDaniel’s options could be limited to a more fringe network, such as Newsmax.

One industry source told Mediaite, “Ronna at this point doesn’t have much of an audience, whether in legacy media, new media, right or left, there just isn’t much eagerness to hear her perspective. She isolated herself from MAGA and the mainstream media certainly showed where they stand. And there’s no signs of a lane in independent media like Rumble or X either. Remember, in politics, it’s not about what you say but what the audience hears. But right now for Ronna, no one is even listening.”

Read it to me

Don’t want to or can’t read the stories in The New York Times? How about listening to them?

Axios’ Sara Fischer with the scoop that The New York Times will use automated voices to read the majority of its stories.

Fischer wrote, “Beginning this week, 10% of NYT website, news app and audio app users will get access to the new automated voice narrations, says Stephanie Preiss, senior vice president and general manager of audio and TV at the Times. Narrations will be available on 75% of article pages that the Times publishes … to start, with plans to eventually expand the feature to all published articles and all app users. For now, all articles will be read aloud by the same automated voice. In the future, Preiss says, the Times is hoping to deliver a more personalized experience, which could include giving users the option to select a style of voice narration or customize their narrated article feed.”

Read Fischer’s story for more information, including how the Times, led by its popular podcast “The Daily,” is establishing itself as one of the biggest audio news companies.

Women’s basketball makes history

After being off all weekend, I was ready to weigh in on the whole Washington Post/Kim Mulkey saga. Mulkey is the LSU women’s basketball coach who was all riled up and threatened to sue the Post about what turned out to be a solid and fair profile by Kent Babb.

But my Poynter colleague, Rick Edmonds, did such a good job on it in Monday’s newsletter that I can move on to more recent women’s basketball news.

This is huge: Monday night’s game on ESPN between Iowa, featuring superstar Caitlin Clark, and Mulkey’s LSU Tigers drew an average audience of 12.8 million. It peaked at 16 million. That made it the most-watched women’s game ever, and the most-watched college basketball game, men’s or women’s, in ESPN history.

Clark had a spectacular game, scoring 41 points to lead Iowa to a 94-87 victory to send the Hawkeyes to the Final Four.

Sports Business Journal’s Austin Karp tweeted, “U-N-R-E-A-L.”

Karp pointed out that the Iowa-LSU game had more viewers than the final round of last year’s Masters golf tournament (12.1 million), four of the five games of last year’s NBA Finals, and every World Series game in 2023. It also outdrew the men’s NCAA game on Sunday between Purdue and Tennessee (10.4 million).

This weekend’s Final Four could set up another record-breaking viewership number as Iowa plays traditional powerhouse UConn. And the winner most likely would play an undefeated South Carolina.

The previous TV record for a women’s game was 11.84 million for the 1983 national championship on CBS between Southern Cal, featuring the great Cheryl Miller, and Louisiana Tech, which had a scrappy guard named Kim Mulkey. USC won, 64-58. Last year’s national championship game averaged 9.9 million viewers and peaked at 12.6 million. That game was between … Iowa and LSU, and the Tigers won the title.

Remembering a favorite

Has there ever been a funnier comedy sketch show than the old “SCTV?” Well, I wanted to take a moment to remember one of the show’s stars: Joe Flaherty, who has died at the age of 82. His former “SCTV” co-star Martin Short had said back in February that Flaherty was gravely ill, and Short was trying to organize a fundraiser to help Flaherty receive around-the-clock care so Flaherty could spend his final days at home.

Flaherty might have been best known for his work in “Happy Gilmore” and as the put-upon dad in “Freaks and Geeks.” But, to me, he will always be the many characters he played on “SCTV” — from “Monster Chiller Horror Theatre” host Count Floyd to station owner Guy Caballero and, because this is a media newsletter, I must mention “SCTV News” anchor Floyd Robertson.

Media tidbits

• Fortune’s Paolo Confino with “Disney CEO Bob Iger grapples with succession planning. Here are the 4 execs who could replace him.”
• The New York Times’ Lauren Hirsch and Benjamin Mullin with “Deal Talks Between Paramount and Skydance Heat Up.”
• The American Society of Magazine Editors announced the winners of the 2024 National Magazine Awards. Here’s the list.
• Former Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman died last week. But in the months before his passing, he worked with Gordon J. Humphrey on this piece, which was published Tuesday by The Washington Post: “How to start winning the information war.”
• For Los Angeles Magazine, Calvin Naito with “How Patrick Soon-Shiong Can Save the Los Angeles Times.”
• NFL Network’s superb “Good Morning Football” is switching locations from New York City to Los Angeles because … well, we’re not sure why. The show will continue, but that’s about all we know. As it leaves New York, Awful Announcing’s Alex Reimer with “‘Good Morning Football’ just finished the longest, strangest goodbye in sports media history.”

Hot type

• For The Ringer, Nate Rogers with “The Ballad of Ray Suzuki: The Secret Life of Early Pitchfork and the Most Notorious Review Ever ‘Written.’”

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Have feedback or a tip? Email Poynter senior media writer Tom Jones at [email protected].