Twitter will ban all political advertising
Twitter will no longer allow political advertising on its platform, founder Jack Dorsey announced Wednesday out of concern for the spread of misinformation.
“Why? A few reasons ... ” Dorsey began a long string of tweets.
“While internet advertising is incredibly powerful and very effective for commercial advertisers, that power brings significant risks to politics, where it can be used to influence votes to affect the lives of millions,” Dorsey said.
The new policy is a stark contrast to that of Facebook, which is grappling with increasingly vocal critics of its hands-off political advertising policy ― the site refuses to fact-check claims made by politicians except in extreme cases. Founder Mark Zuckerberg did little to clear up questions about Facebook’s approach to stifling misinformation at a congressional hearing earlier this month.
Dorsey appeared to take multiple swipes at Zuckerberg.
“[I]t’s not credible for us to say: ‘We’re working hard to stop people from gaming our systems to spread misleading info, buuut if someone pays us to target and force people to see their political ad … well ... they can say whatever they want!’” Dorsey wrote in one tweet.
The Facebook executive claimed in a recent letter to employees that the company is “working hard” to “give users more context on the content they see, demote violating content, and more.”
Zuckerberg has also used freedom of expression as his primary defense of Facebook’s lassez-faire policy, which Dorsey addressed head-on: “This isn’t about free expression. This is is about paying for reach. And paying to increase the reach of political speech has significant ramifications that today’s democratic infrastructure may not be prepared to handle.”
“It’s worth stepping back in order to address,” he concluded.
Twitter’s new policy won’t affect certain bipartisan topics, such as ads supporting voter registration, and will go into effect Nov. 22. More details will be provided by Nov. 15, Dorsey said.
We’ve made the decision to stop all political advertising on Twitter globally. We believe political message reach should be earned, not bought. Why? A few reasons…🧵
— jack (@jack) October 30, 2019
A political message earns reach when people decide to follow an account or retweet. Paying for reach removes that decision, forcing highly optimized and targeted political messages on people. We believe this decision should not be compromised by money.
— jack (@jack) October 30, 2019
While internet advertising is incredibly powerful and very effective for commercial advertisers, that power brings significant risks to politics, where it can be used to influence votes to affect the lives of millions.
— jack (@jack) October 30, 2019
Internet political ads present entirely new challenges to civic discourse: machine learning-based optimization of messaging and micro-targeting, unchecked misleading information, and deep fakes. All at increasing velocity, sophistication, and overwhelming scale.
— jack (@jack) October 30, 2019
These challenges will affect ALL internet communication, not just political ads. Best to focus our efforts on the root problems, without the additional burden and complexity taking money brings. Trying to fix both means fixing neither well, and harms our credibility.
— jack (@jack) October 30, 2019
For instance, it‘s not credible for us to say: “We’re working hard to stop people from gaming our systems to spread misleading info, buuut if someone pays us to target and force people to see their political ad…well...they can say whatever they want! 😉”
— jack (@jack) October 30, 2019
We considered stopping only candidate ads, but issue ads present a way to circumvent. Additionally, it isn’t fair for everyone but candidates to buy ads for issues they want to push. So we're stopping these too.
— jack (@jack) October 30, 2019
In addition, we need more forward-looking political ad regulation (very difficult to do). Ad transparency requirements are progress, but not enough. The internet provides entirely new capabilities, and regulators need to think past the present day to ensure a level playing field.
— jack (@jack) October 30, 2019
We’ll share the final policy by 11/15, including a few exceptions (ads in support of voter registration will still be allowed, for instance). We’ll start enforcing our new policy on 11/22 to provide current advertisers a notice period before this change goes into effect.
— jack (@jack) October 30, 2019
A final note. This isn’t about free expression. This is about paying for reach. And paying to increase the reach of political speech has significant ramifications that today’s democratic infrastructure may not be prepared to handle. It’s worth stepping back in order to address.
— jack (@jack) October 30, 2019
More from HuffPost Politics:
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez Stumps Mark Zuckerberg On Lying In Political Facebook Ads
Lawmaker Slams Zuckerberg’s Revisionist Facebook History: Nowhere ‘Near The Truth’
Facebook’s New Section For ‘Quality News’ Will Include... Breitbart
