Twitter to Lift Ban on Political Ads: They ‘Can Facilitate Public Conversation’

Kirby Lee via AP

The Elon Musk-owned Twitter announced on Tuesday it will lift its ban on political advertising.

“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,” tweeted Twitter Safety on Tuesday.

They continued, “Moving forward, we will align our advertising policy with that of TV and other media outlets. As with all policy changes, we will first ensure that our approach to reviewing and approving content protects people on Twitter. We’ll share more details as this work progresses.”

In December, Twitter Safety took a poll asking users if the ban should be continued. Of the 326,890 votes, 87 percent of them said no.

In October 2019, then-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey announced the ban ahead of the 2020 election.

“We’ve made the decision to stop all political advertising on Twitter globally. We believe political message reach should be earned, not bought,” he tweeted.

He continued, “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.”

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