Twitter will ban all political ads from November

The company’s CEO Jack Dorsey tweeted that Twitter will ban all political ads worldwide from November 22nd.

The changes affect both candidate and issue ads, although voter registration ads are still allowed along with other exceptions. Dorsey said a full policy will be released to the public on November 15th.

“Some might argue that what we do today may favor incumbents,” Dorsey said. “But we have seen how many social movements without political advertising have reached massive proportions.”

We have decided to stop all political advertising on Twitter worldwide. We believe political message reach should be earned, not bought. Why? A couple of reasons …

– jack (@jack) October 30, 2019

The company’s decision comes after Facebook stumbled upon the same problem for weeks. Earlier this month, Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign posted letters on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube refusing to post false or misleading political ads. Biden’s campaign had been the target of a series of advertisements run by President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign making unsubstantiated claims about the Biden family’s relationship with the Ukrainian government.

In a letter of reply that The Verge received at the time, Facebook said that the claims made by politicians in advertisements on the platform are not being verified.

“Our approach is based on Facebook’s fundamental belief in free speech, respect for the democratic process, and the belief that in mature democracies with a free press, political speech is arguably the most reviewed speech,” said Katie Harbath, Facebook’s audience political director for global elections, said earlier this month. “So when a politician speaks or makes a complaint, we don’t send it to outside fact-checkers.”

Twitter has put in place some guidelines to discourage politicians from making false statements on its platform but has yet to apply them. Earlier this summer, Twitter said it would gray-out tweets from public figures like Trump who break his rules and limit users’ ability to share them, but has not yet implemented this in any tweet.

In a USA Today comment on Tuesday, Facebook redoubled its policies to allow candidates to promote misinformation. “We shouldn’t be the gatekeepers of the truth in candidate ads,” write Harbath and Nell McCarthy, director of policy management at Facebook.

“This is not about free speech,” said Dorsey. “This is about paying for reach. And paying to increase the reach of political speech has significant implications that today’s democratic infrastructure may not be prepared for. “

Dorsey’s full explanation of the rule change is below (emojis removed):

We have decided to stop all political advertising on Twitter worldwide. We believe political message reach should be earned, not bought. Why? A couple of reasons …

Political messages gain reach when people choose to follow or retweet an account. Paying for reach cancels that decision and forces people to deliver highly optimized and targeted political messages. We believe this decision shouldn’t be compromised by money.

While internet advertising is incredibly powerful and very effective for commercial advertisers, that power carries significant risks to politics, where it can be used to influence voices to affect the lives of millions.

Political internet advertising poses completely new challenges for the bourgeois discourse: machine learning optimization of messaging and micro-targeting, unchecked misleading information and deep fakes. All with increasing speed, sophistication and overwhelming size.

These challenges will affect all Internet communications, not just political advertising. It’s best to focus our efforts on the root problems without the added burden and complexity that money brings. Trying to fix both means fixing neither, and it damages our credibility.

For example, it is not believable for us to say, “We work hard to stop people from playing our systems to provide misleading information, but when someone pays us to target people and force them to publicize their politics to see … well … you … can say what you want!

We considered stopping candidate ads only, but this is a way to get around this. Additionally, it isn’t fair for everyone, except candidates, to buy ads on topics they want to advance. So let’s stop this too.

We recognize that we are a small part of a much larger political advertising ecosystem. Some may argue that what we do today may benefit incumbents. But we have seen how many social movements have reached massive proportions without any political advertising. I trust this will only grow.

We also need more forward-looking political advertising regulation (very difficult). Ad transparency requirements are a step forward, but not enough. The Internet is a whole new world of opportunities and regulators need to think outside the box to ensure a level playing field.

We will have the final policy by 11/15. Post including some exceptions (e.g., advertisements to aid voter registration). We start on November 22nd. with the enforcement of our new policy to give current advertisers notice before this change goes into effect.

One last note. This is not about freedom of expression. This is about paying for reach. And paying to expand the reach of political speech has significant implications that today’s democratic infrastructure may not be prepared for. It’s worth taking a step back to speak to yourself.