@neirda I'm considering replicating the experiment and documenting it step-by-step. It's evident Musk is cramming ads and manipulating buyers.

I'm reminded of a comment by my brother recently about data analytics-driven targeted marketing on digital platforms: "If you're delivering ads to absolutely undesired demographics (diapers for elderly men, retirement living to teens, Hawaiian utility co-op PSAs to Illinois residents), you won't be in the business much longer."

He heads the retail and manufacturing vertical for one of the largest data lake and data analytics firms. His point was that if you are selling demographically misaligned ads to buyers, those buyers are incompetent. Your ad buys are to suckers, fooled by imprints not understanding nearly all of the ad spend is wasted on people who would never buy your ads. Either they discover digital platforms that know how to match the ad to the target or they aren't in business much longer.

Musk is unquestionably doing this - overtly or covertly. We've seen the ads that are nonsensical for us. One blocked advertiser was a North Carolina community hospital. We are in rural Iowa. Twitter's pitch *was* that it knew its consumer and could hyper-focus that ad to precisely the potential buyers. It's possible Musk is transparently selling cheap "blast all" ads but for most ad buyers, that's an awful, low-return approach.

@neirda More details:

Account was roughly 60 days old.
Ads started after 30.
Account was not verified

Second to last ad was a junky Chinese holiday toy. Block took two attempts but successfully blocked. That's a warning sign.

Then "Parents Gazette" ad came up which was strange. This account had already been blocked a week ago. We attempted to re-block it and ta-da... "This user cannot be blocked at this time."

My guess is Musk sells premium ad accounts that if blocked, are unblocked. And if re-blocking is attempted, it may trigger a spam account alert and permanently suspend. Appeals are always rejected without cause.

@neirda Sadly yes. I read of people blocking thousands without consequence but let's just say the experiment was replicated this time (with credentials to ensure there were no connections between a prior account banned for the same behavior and this one).

That Musk would cram irrelevant, undesired ads onto people and charge the sponsor for eyeballs the message fails with is hilariously poor marketing methods. The prior account's last block and instant suspension was on a Hawaii public utility ad - we're in Iowa. This one was some Chinese Christmas junk toy advertising "you'll be the best grandparent with this holiday toy."

Elon must be desperate for cash.