While the ADL's previous relationship with Twitter to enforce shadowbanning is kind of a spicy accusation, the actual damages here are almost certainly wrong.<p>In theory, markets for direct response ads <i>should</i> be somewhat efficient - you are paying for clicks, views, traffic, etc. So <i>even if</i> the ADL was behind some kind of conspiracy with major brands, you would see <i>someone</i> scooping up the ads at a slight discount.<p>The truth is that most ads were probably ineffective to begin with. Big brands were overpaying on ads as part of "awareness" programs, and probably because the ad departments at these companies were personally using Twitter a lot and wanted their brands to be on Twitter for personal reasons (if you don't think marketing departments are so vain, you should hear how many billboards are bought just because they sit on travel routes of company executives).<p>Musk is now himself hammering in this idea. He's not making a case that Twitter has a valuable set of engagement metrics that are currently going untapped - and current ad buyers are getting a crazy good deal. He's admitting that Twitter's valuation was based on Twitter being a cool place for vain brands to dump money and now it's not.