The micro-blogging site Twitter, which is often criticised for its left-wing bias, has decided to ban all political advertising worldwide.
In a series of tweets, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said that Twitter is all set to ban political advertising on its platform next month. Dorsey announced his decision to stop all political advertising on Twitter globally stating that the micro-blogging site believed that political message reach “should be earned, not bought”.
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
Jack Dorsey further added, “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.”
Read: Jack Dorsey under investigation for potential falsities in his testimony about censorship on Twitter
He further stated that 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.
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
“It’s not credible,” he wrote, “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!”
Countering the argument that the new policy might be seen as favouring leaders already in office, he pointed out that “many social movements reach massive scale without any political advertising”. Ads in support of voter registration would not be affected by the ban, he added.
The ban will be enforced from 22 November, with full details released by 15 November.
