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- Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey says the company will no longer allow political ads on its social network.
- Dorsey explained the decision in a Twitter thread on Wednesday.
- “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,” Dorsey tweeted.
- Twitter’s ban on political ads comes after Facebook announced that it would not fact-check paid political ads — a policy that has drawn scrutiny from lawmakers, the media, and the public.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
Twitter will no longer allow political advertisements, according to CEO Jack Dorsey.
Dorsey explained the decision in lengthy thread posted on Wednesday afternoon, and specifically pushed back against the reasoning Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg used to defend Facebook’s policy allowing paid political ads with intentional lies and misinformation.
“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,” Dorsey tweeted.
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
Twitter’s policy banning political ads will go into effect on November 22, and the full policy will be posted one week earlier, on November 15. Dorsey said online political ads present new challenges to the democratic process that will require “forward-looking” solutions, including new regulations and improved transparency.
“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.
Earlier this month, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he had considered removing political ads from Facebook. The ads only make up a small portion of the social media platform’s advertising revenue, but Zuckerberg said banning ads from politicians could create a slippery-slope in which ads dealing with specific issues like healthcare and immigration could also be deemed as political and inappropriate for advertisements.
“Political ads are an important part of voice — especially for local candidates, up-and-coming challengers, and advocacy groups that may not get much media attention otherwise. Banning political ads favors incumbents and whoever the media covers,” Zuckerberg said in a speech delivered at Georgetown University.
“Even if we wanted to ban political ads, it’s not clear where we’d draw the line. There are many more ads about issues than there are directly about elections. Would we ban all ads about healthcare or immigration or women’s empowerment? If we banned candidates’ ads but not these, would that really make sense to give everyone else a voice in political debates except the candidates themselves?”
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