Twitter to Ban Political Ads Globally

Twitter will ban all political ads globally, in a move that sets the platform apart from Facebook, which considered doing the same but decided against it.

“We’ve made the decision to stop all political advertising on Twitter globally. We believe political message reach should be earned, not bought,” said Twitter founder and CEO Jack Dorsey.

“Why? A few reasons.”

“A political message earns reach when people decide to follow an account or retweet,” wrote Dorsey. “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.”

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.”

“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.”

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

Dorsey also hinted that the “burden and complexity” of allowing political ads on Twitter, which has fewer resources compared to larger tech platforms like YouTube and Facebook, was a factor. 

“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.” 

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

In further comments that appeared to criticize the stance of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who has resisted pressure from Democrats to ban political ads that contain “lies,” or ban political ads altogether, Dorsey said that allowing such ads would be hypocritical.

“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!'” said the Twitter CEO. 

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

Dorsey called for “forward-looking political ad regulation” that goes beyond transparency requirements.

“Some might argue our actions today could favor incumbents,” said Dorsey (another reference to an argument made by Mark Zuckerberg), “But we have witnessed many social movements reach massive scale without any political advertising”

We’re well aware we‘re a small part of a much larger political advertising ecosystem. Some might argue our actions today could favor incumbents. But we have witnessed many social movements reach massive scale without any political advertising. I trust this will only grow.

— jack 🌍🌏🌎 (@jack) October 30, 2019

Dorsey said that Twitter’s full policy on political ads would be released on the 15th of November.