Elon Musk’s Twitter announced Tuesday that it will remove its previous ban on political advertisements “in the coming weeks.”
Twitter’s ban on political ads has been in effect since 2019 after former CEO Jack Dorsey said “political message reach should be earned.” Twitter’s Safety account stated that the change would take place in the near future in an effort to continue fostering “public conversation around important topics.” (RELATED: Elon Musk Responds To Trump Blaming Abortion For Midterm Election Results)
“We believe that cause-based advertising can facilitate public conversation around important topics,” the post read. “We also plan to expand the political advertising we permit in the coming weeks.”
We believe that cause-based advertising can facilitate public conversation around important topics. Today, we’re relaxing our ads policy for cause-based ads in the US. We also plan to expand the political advertising we permit in the coming weeks.
— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) January 3, 2023
In 2019, Dorsey banned political ads after Facebook founder Mark Zuckerburg criticized calls for his social media platform to censor certain kinds of political speech, according to The New York Times.
“A political message earns reach when people decide to follow an account or retweet,” Dorsey stated. “Paying for reach removes that decision, forcing highly optimized and targeted political messages on people.”
We’ve made the decision to stop all political advertising on Twitter globally. We believe political message reach should be earned, not bought. Why? A few reasons…🧵
— jack (@jack) October 30, 2019
Twitter’s recent reversal will also apply to cause-based advertising, which Twitter defines as advertisements that “raise awareness” or give a “call to action” for political and social causes, and will follow policies created by other media outlets and TV. The post also stated that the number one priority continues to be ensuring the safety of those on Twitter.
“As with all policy changes, we will first ensure that our approach to reviewing and approving content protects people on Twitter,” the thread read. “We’ll share more details as this work progresses.”
Twitter’s methods for “reviewing and approving content” came under fire over the last few weeks after Musk, with the help of several journalists, released dozens of files showing governmental interference on the platform. Many of the files confirmed that Twitter had censored, penalized and even outright banned many accounts at the orders of the FBI, members of Congress and the White House.
Twitter did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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