Twitter Strengthens Bans On Political Ads Before 2020 U.S Elections
On Friday, Twitter Inc declared that its political advertising ban which will include references to political candidates or legislation and it will also not allow ads to support for a certain outcome on social and political causes.
Twitter is one of the most popular social media sites that had previously announced its political ads ban during the last month but did not disclose the details on the newly formed policy. On Friday, it revealed that anything which has reference to a candidate, political party, elected or appointed government official, election, referendum, ballot measure, legislation, regulation, directive, or judicial outcome will be considered as political content.
Twitter officials also confirmed that it will use a combination of automated technology and a human team to impose the new ad policies.
The reason for the emergence of this strict move is the approach of the Presidential campaign in November 2020 for which campaigns have already been planned. To avoid any kind of controversy, all social media companies have been asked to stop accepting ads that might spread untrue information and could hamper the elections.
During the announcement of the van, Twitter Chief Executive Jack Dorsey stated that political message is something that must be earned and not bought.
Following Twitter’s trial, rival company Facebook Inc said that it doesn’t want to smother with the political speech and has already stopped accepting calls from few politicians as it doesn’t want any political ad to be present on their platform to fuel any sort of misleading claims.
According to globalnews.com, the ban is expected to stir up from November 22.
In response to the ban, Brad Parscale who is the campaign manager for U.S President Donald Trump’s re-election bid stated that this is nothing but yet another attempt to shush the conservatives as it is very well known that President Trump enjoys the most well built online program ever.
Adding to this, Deputy Communications Director for former Vice President Joe Biden’s presidential campaign named Bill Russo showed his appreciation towards Twitter’s move and also added that the social media companies must work harder to ensure that their platforms are not widespread with misleading information.
The director also added that people are eagerly waiting to see how well Twitter can stay true to their word and move.
One more thing that has been announced by Del Harvey, Vice president of trust and safety during the conference call on Friday was that Twitter will only let companies and advocacy groups run those ads that promote awareness and discussion about social causes such as environmental protection. It will not entertain any kind of push for a political or legislative change and especially those which are advocating a particular thing for their business benefits.
For example, Sierra Club can continue to promote their causes but would not be allowed to single out politicians whom they support or also target those whom they would like to see defeated in the elections or act as a lobby for political outcomes.
Similarly, a group can run a gun violence awareness ad but could not call for a ban on assault weapons which are being used in mass shootings as the ban implies legislation, as said by Twitter.
Twitter also said that any ad which is intended to promote awareness about a particular cause would be allowed to target users only at the state level or higher, but not according to the zip-codes. Advertisers won’t be allowed to target people based on their political leanings as well.
Roy Temple, who has worked with political campaigns and is also a partner at digital media consultancy GPS Impact said that this move by Twitter CEO is a gigantic cop-out and it doesn’t involve much loss of revenue and he further went on to question the difficulty that might arise during the implantation of this complicated policy.
He also stated his confusion regarding the move and said that he doesn’t want to be named as the Twitter employee who makes these calls and then defends them. He cleared his point by citing an example that says that Universal Healthcare is a cause but wonders whether there is any bill related to that or not. He is confused that whether the move is talking about the bill or the cause, how that can be determined.
Harvey during the Friday conference said that the new policies were not built to change Twitter’s fourth-quarter revenue forecast. He also confirmed that the political ad spends for the 2018 U.S midterm elections on Twitter was less than $3million.
Critics also stated their view and said that the ban would penalize the lesser-known candidates who have been taking on well-funded holders in the local elections.
Showing his concern for the lesser-known candidates, Eric Wilson, a political strategist who is based in Washington DC said that if giant digital advertising companies, like Facebook and Google, adopted such policies it would prove disastrous to the down-ballot candidates who lack many names.
Wilson also added that if ever Facebook plans to remove its micro-targeting strategy, it would turn to be a matter of great concern. He also said that Facebook is so far the best platform for raising grassroots support, and a similar ban on such a vehicle could hurt those candidates who do not accept large donations from any corporations and political action committees.
Twitter, however, confirmed that it would try its best to make the new rules as clearly as possible. But other big companies like Facebook and Alphabet Inc’s Google already have widely publicized struggles to moderate the vast amount of content uploaded their sites.
Any new publisher that meets the criteria can continue to run ads on Twitter that has reference to political content but they, however, cannot support for or against a political topic.
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