From a business perspective, for twitter, there is some measure of legitimate reasoning to it. Since large scale influence operations are going to exist, no matter what you do. There are going to be agenda-driven troll farms and such, and there’s apparently little way to stop them. And even legitimate individual users are typically there to sound off, speak up, say their peace, and to try to influence. So that works toward making the user data unreliable to start with. Given this fact, it might somewhat might make some measure of business sense to shift from a strategy of selling user data to one of auctioning off influence to the highest bidders, knowing you can’t do both. The long-term result, though, should be a significant decline in users, and ultimate decimation of the company, because that flies directly in the face of why most legitimate users are there in the first place. Nobody logs into twitter with the goal of finding out what they’re supposed to be thinking on a given day, as dictated by the highest bidder.

From a practical standpoint, it’s also a very counterproductive marketing practice. It creates a circular, self-dependent bubble where the only user information marketers ever receive back is that which they put in themselves through influence operations. User data becomes entirely unreliable.The only thing it accomplishes is to further ingrain their own confirmation bias. Led to wrongly believe a few outspoken twitter trolls, who happen to agree with their influence operations, represent the majority. They’re literally going around in circles.

Of course, that sort of circular stupidity is why many companies like Anheuser-Busch are now circling the drain.

Some, I believe, know and understand how destructive to business goals it is, but they keep doing it because they want to push social agendas, which at this time are mostly the desired acceptance and normalization of abominable sin. They want the rest of the world to think those twitter trolls going along with their influence operations represent the majority. Because they know most people lack the courage it takes to stand against the wickedness. Most people will go along to get along.

As long as companies can latch onto the taxpayer teet and shore up such self-destructive activity with taxpayer dollars, they’ll keep doing it and they’ll keep succeeding.

Reminds me of the old play on the term golden rule: “he who has the most gold, rules”

The contrast between that and the actual Golden Rule given by Jesus nearly perfectly describes the difference between their meaning and application of the word “stakeholder” and the opposite ethical meaning and application of the word.

Of course, the most ironic thing about their clever word-craft is the fact that what they’re advocating for is actually textbook fascism, up one side and down the other.