Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey announced the company would no longer accept political ads globally.
He said in a twitter thread, “We’ve made the decision to stop all political advertising on Twitter globally. We believe political message reach should be earned, not bought.”
He 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.”
Twitter made less than a $3 million from political ads in 2018. Chief Finance Officer, Ned Segal, however asserted that the decision was based on principle not money.
Lately Silicon Valley favorites, Facebook in particular, have been criticised for being leveraged by politicians to spread misinformation.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently faced a grilling by Members of Congress about not whether or not the company fact checks political ads run on its platform.
It is not yet clear whether Facebook will follow the move by Twitter, however it seems unlikely following Zuckerberg’s statements about the same.
Related article: Twitter Modifies Rules to Quarantine Tweets by Politicians Who Break its Rules
On an earnings call, Zuckerberg said, “We need to be careful about adopting more and more rules” regarding political speech.”In a democracy, I don’t think it’s right for private companies to censor politicians or the news.”
Zuckerberg, whose company has profited millions from political advertising, says the company will continue to evaluate whether it is beneficial to allow or disallow political ads.
Zuckerberg said, “Given the sensitivity around political ads, I’ve considered whether we should stop allowing them altogether. From a business perspective, the controversy certainly isn’t worth the small part of our business they make up.”
He said political ads will account for less than 0.5% of the company’s revenue in the coming year.
He added, “But 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.”
Facebook was one of the central figures in a scandal where Cambridge Analytica, a data analytics firm, illegally accessed data on millions of American users’ information. This information was said to have been used to skew the American elections.
President Trump’s campaign manager, Brad Parscale, termed the move by Twitter “a very dumb decision for their stockholders.”
He said in a statement, “This is yet another attempt to silence conservatives, since Twitter knows President Trump has the most sophisticated online program ever known.”
