When Elon Musk bought Twitter last October, a number of companies were unsure how to respond.
The new owner, in what he said was the interest of promoting free speech, dropped many of the safeguards the social media site had used.
Twitter was never a safe place -- its sheer size makes fully policing it nearly impossible -- but the Tesla (TSLA) -) CEO had no interest in even trying.
Musk may not have wanted chaos, but he certainly was okay with making hate speech more acceptable and embracing the bullying nature that social-media posts can fall into when there are no standards.
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Musk seems to embrace conspiracy theories, encourage divisiveness, and generally love the idea that Twitter could be a platform mostly for him to be a huge star.
It's hard to know Musk's intentions. (Twitter's press office answers inquiries with a poop emoji.) He may very well believe in absolute free speech, and his intentions for Twitter may be pure (after a sense), but he has put businesses in a tough position.
When Musk bought the platform, many companies, including McDonald's (MCD) -), which has never been considered left-leaning, simply stopped posting. In the case of the burger chain, nothing was said and the company again began using its feed after a few months.
Many companies -- 50 of Twitter's top 100 advertisers, according to NPR -- stopped or at least paused paid advertising on the platform. Musk's management choices at Twitter made many companies question their places on the brand, but in many cases it was an irreplaceable way to communicate with customers.
That may no longer be true since Mark Zuckerberg's Meta Platforms (META) -) (parent of Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp) has launched Threads, a Twitter alternative that has quickly gained traction.
And Walt Disney (DIS) -) has been a notable early adopter.
Image source: Walt Disney
Disney-Twitter a Mixed Relationship
Disney relationship with Twitter since Musk took over has been mixed. The company did suspend advertising on the platform for a period, but that happened a few weeks before the Tesla CEO bought the brand.
Once Musk took over, Disney returned to advertising and the billionaire actually took note of that.
“Disney is a major advertiser on Twitter, one of our biggest advertisers. Apple is one of our biggest advertisers. Disney, of course, does not want to have its ads next to things that are not appropriate for a family audience,” Musk said.
It's hard to know if Disney was endorsing Musk's platform or placing its dollars where its customers will be reached.
Twitter is a unique platform and companies have struggled to find alternatives to it. It's useful not just for sharing information -- something Disney does a lot of -- but also for customer service as it enables companies to see when they're being talked about and choose to respond publicly or privately.
Disney Joins Zuckerberg's Twitter Rival
While numerous attempts to knock off Twitter have been made, none has reached critical mass. For a Twitter rival to work, it needs not just a mass of people but the big brands and influencers that draw people to social media in the first place.
Threads appears to have that mix, as Meta has leveraged its Instagram brand, which gave the new platform an array of huge names right off the bat.
Disney has chosen to be one of those names, opening an account for its Disney Parks division. That might or might not be a slap at Musk since despite its initial surge of users, Threads is still in its infancy.
"Yes, it’s a duplicate of Twitter, and yes, it’s piggybacking off of Instagram to build its user base. But regardless of the framing, Meta’s new Threads app is still on track to become the fastest-growing app of all time, with over 30 million users now active on the platform," Social Media Today reported.
That makes Zuck's new app the fastest-growing new app since ChatGPT, but it still has a long way to go. Twitter has more than 450 million monthly active users and it's a big leap from getting people to sign up for an app and getting them to use it.
But when big players like Disney are willing to be active players on what for now is a tiny brand, that's a very big vote of confidence.
This may not be Disney opting for Zuckerberg over Musk -- the company may just want to cover its bases. But Threads will not succeed if companies do not come aboard and when Disney goes someplace, other companies may feel they have to follow.
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