Twitter ceases all political advertising – CNET

Twitter will no longer sell political ads, CEO Jack Dorsey tweeted on Wednesday, taking a position that sets his social network apart from industry giant Facebook. Dorsey, who unveiled the policy on his personal account, said internet advertising has presented new challenges that require the company to change its practices. Those challenges include micro-targeting of audiences, sophisticated manipulated videos known as deepfakes and messages optimized by machine learning, Dorsey said in an 11-tweet chain of messages.

He added that it’s all occurring with “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

“We believe political message reach should be earned, not bought,” he said. “A political message earns reach when people decide to follow an account or retweet. Paying for reach removes that decision.”

Dorsey added that the power of internet advertising for politics “brings significant risks,” as it can influence voting and affect millions of lives. Twitter can only focus on addressing the root problem with internet advertising if it doesn’t accept money for it in the meantime.

Regulators must also consider long-term policies for dealing with political ads, Dorsey said.

Twitter’s final policy will be unveiled on Nov. 15 and enforced from Nov. 22, and will still allow for voting registration ads.

Dorsey concluded his thread by saying it’s not 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.”

Twitter’s new policy comes as social media giant Facebook deals with backlash from a hands-off approach to speech by  politicians that allows office holders and candidates to lie in ads on the social network. The policy has sparked criticism from Democrats, civil rights groups and even its own employees, all of whom worry Facebook is allowing the spread of misinformation. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg have defended the policy, saying it protects free expression.

The campaign of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden responded to Twitter’s announcement by saying it’s “encouraging” that protecting democracy won out against ad campaign money “for once.”

“We appreciate that Twitter recognizes that they should not permit disproven smears, like those from the Trump campaign, to appear in advertisements on their platform,” Bill Russo, deputy communications director of Biden for President, said in an emailed statement. “[But it] would be unfortunate to suggest that the only option available to social media companies to do so is the full withdrawal of political advertising.”

Political ads likely aren’t a critical source of Twitter’s revenue, eMarketer senior analyst Jasmine Enberg pointed out, and ceasing advertising won’t solve the spread of misinformation because “people, publishers and politicians will still use Twitter to discuss politics organically.”

“Twitter’s decision to ban political advertising is in stark contrast to Facebook, and in line with its continued efforts to improve the health of the platform,” Enberg added.

A Twitter spokeswoman said political ads make up a small amount of the company’s ad business, but declined to give specifics.

Facebook, which reported better-than-expected third-quarter earnings Wednesday despite the criticism of its political ads, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

First published at 1:12 p.m. PT on Oct. 30.
Updated at 1:36 p.m.: Adds more information, background; Updated at 1:57 p.m.: Adds more information, statement from Twitter spokesperson; Updated at 2:02 p.m.: Adds statement from analyst; Updated at 2:09 p.m.: Adds statement from Biden campaign.