San Francisco: The social media giant, Twitter, which has been a strong platform for the exchange and spread of political ideas, said that it is going to stop accepting political advertising globally. The decision comes after concerns of misinformation from the part of politicians using the platform.
Chief Executive Officer, Jack Dorsey, said, “We’ve made the decision to stop all political advertising on Twitter globally. We believe political message reach should be earned, not bought.”
He also said, ” 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 ban would come into effect from 22 November and the full details of it would be released by 15 November.
Twitter would not only ban advertisements of candidates but also advertisements of the political issues so that the candidates cannot circumvent the ban.
The decision of Twitter has mounted pressure on Facebook to follow suit. However, the CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, defended his company’s policy allowing political advertising by saying that it is important to allow everyone a “voice” and that if a ban is imposed on political advertisement then it would result in favouring only those in power.
Zuckerberg said, “In a democracy, I don’t think it’s right for private companies to censor politicians or the news.”
Interestingly, the news of Twitter’s ban has raised a debate in the US political circles, which is getting ready for the Presidential elections next year.
Donald Trump’s campaign manager, Brad Parscale, said, “Will Twitter also be stopping ads from biased liberal media outlets who will now run unchecked as they buy obvious political content meant to attack Republicans?”
He also took a dig at Twitter and said, “Twitter just walked away from hundreds of millions of dollars of potential revenue, a very dumb decision for their stockholders.”
However, Democrats were happy about the decision of Twitter and added pressure on Facebook to follow suit.
Hillary Clinton tweeted, ” This is the right thing to do for democracy in America and all over the world. What say you, @Facebook?…”
