Twitter to ban political ads from next month

Twitter is banning all political advertising from its service, saying social media companies give advertisers an unfair advantage in proliferating highly targeted and misleading messages.

Facebook has been under fire since it disclosed earlier in October that it will not fact-check ads by politicians or their campaigns, which could allow them to lie freely. 

CEO Mark Zuckerberg told Congress last week that politicians have the right to free speech on Facebook. 

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey tweeted the change to his platform on Wednesday, saying the company is recognizing that advertising on social media offers an unfair level of targeting compared to other mediums.

Twitter’s policy will start on November 22. 

Dorsey posted a series of tweets on Wednesday explaining Twitter’s decision. 

‘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…’ he tweeted.   

‘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. 

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

The issue regarding political ads suddenly arose in September when Twitter, along with Facebook and Google, refused to remove a misleading video ad from President Donald Trump’s campaign that targeted former Vice President Joe Biden, a leading Democratic presidential candidate. 

In response, Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, another presidential hopeful, ran an ad on Facebook taking aim at its CEO Mark Zuckerberg. 

The ad falsely claimed that Zuckerberg endorsed President Donald Trump for re-election, acknowledging the deliberate falsehood as necessary to make a point. 

Critics have since called on Facebook to ban all political ads. 

The majority of money spent on political advertising in the U.S. goes to television ads.