Twitter lifts political ban on ads designed to stop the spread of misinformation [Updated]

Online advertising on social platforms is evolving. Google and Meta no longer have majority control over advertising dollars, according to the Wall Street Journal, with Amazon and TikTok to influence advertisers to other platforms. Twitter is also hungry to redirect advertising dollars to its platform, as it is announced yesterday that it would “loosen” its policy on political ads and allow more “cause-based” ads. The company also plans to expand to allow for other forms of political advertising “in the coming weeks.”

Promising to share more details soon, the @TwitterSafety account tweeted on Tuesday that Twitter’s goal now is to align its advertising policy “with that of TV and other media.” It’s unclear exactly what that means on a platform like Twitter, but the The Federal Communications Commission specifies that it strives to restrict censorship and ensure equal opportunities for political advertisers. This somewhat aligns with Twitter CEO Elon Musk’s “free speech absolutist” stance. Twitter might also seek to mimic the FCC to reduce the company’s responsibility to review or ensure the accuracy of all political advertising content.

Twitter’s recent policy change reverses a decision the platform made in 2019 to ban political ads to limit the spread of misinformation. This is the ban of 2019 exceptions included for certain cause-based advertising, where advertisers were permitted to perform certain micro-targeting of Twitter users based on geographic location information, keywords and limited interests. Notably, advertisers were not allowed to target audiences based on their political affiliation such as “conservative” or “liberal”. Under these previous rules, Twitter Certified Cause-Based Advertisers approved the promotion of content created to “educate, raise awareness and/or call people to action in relation to civic engagement, economic growth, stewardship of environment or social equity”.

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In 2019, the Electronic Frontier Foundation said that Twitter limiting cause-based advertising was not good policy because the micro-targeting exception applies to “an almost incredibly wide range of advertising adjacent to prohibited campaign content”. The EFF said the policy has “the potential to make the problem it tries to solve” worse, suggesting that smaller social media platforms that “let users choose the moderation approaches that work for them” do more. to allow their users to “protect against manipulative advertising.

The coming weeks will show whether Musk will provide more tools for Twitter users to protect themselves or if his company will simply leave it up to users to distinguish between a worthwhile cause and manipulative ads. It could be that Twitter’s priority for expanding the public conversation hinges on users relying on their own judgement. In November 2022, Twitter said its mission has always been to be the town square of the internet, insisting that this was only possible if everyone had “the power to create and share ideas and information, instantly without barriers”.

Ars could not immediately reach Twitter or the EFF for comment. [Update: EFF civil liberties director David Greene told Ars that “it’s hard to assess whether the new policy is better than the old one without knowing the specifics of the new policy.” Greene said that Twitter isn’t the first social platform to say that “they will follow the rules that ‘TV and other media outlets follow'”—he criticized a similar move that Parler made in 2020— and that description alone “isn’t really helpful, since those policies can vary greatly.”

Greene said that Twitter’s new policy “can and should be criticized” for being a US-only policy that overlooks the fact that “the majority of Twitter’s users are not US users.” Those international users rely just as much on Twitter during key elections. The new policy can also be criticized for being too vague. “To properly respect human rights, content policies should be clear and precise, and readily understandable to users,” Greene said. “It is not sufficient for Twitter to vaguely roll out an important new policy.”

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Without more detail, Greene told Ars that Musk’s Twitter “lifting the ban is potentially good” in at least one way. “We thought the old policy was bad and especially harmful for less well-resourced cause organizations for which social media advertising remains an important way to raise awareness and funds,” Greene told Ars. “And social media bans on political advertisers tends to entrench better-funded candidates who can afford the more expensive advertising platforms.”]

Bloomberg reported that political advertising before the 2019 ban was a “minor source of revenue” for Twitter, generating less than $3 million in the 2018 midterm elections. That’s a pittance compared to overall ad revenue of Twitter today, which S&P Global Market Intelligence Report in 2021 was $4.5 billion. And although Musk was pinching a dime in 2022, even not paying $136,000 in rent for Twitter headquarters— it seems focused on larger-scale lucrative strategies for Twitter rather than bringing in a few million dollars in ad revenue. In an investor pitch deck reviewed by the New York TimesMusk said he plans to grow Twitter’s revenue to $26 billion by 2028, with an influx of $10 billion expected to come from Twitter Blue subscriptions.

Whatever Musk’s intentions to relax Twitter’s political advertising policies — whether it’s for profit, to drive more engagement on Twitter, or some other motivation — the policy update presents a potential for increased dissemination of misinformation on the platform. This is alarming for some users, especially since Twitter’s recent decision to relax its COVID-19 misinformation policy has already caused a tragedy. this week, The Washington Post reported that “baseless” tweets from anti-vaxxers and right-wing provocateurs have been spreading on Twitter claiming without evidence that NFL player Damar Hamlin collapsed on the field during a Monday game because he had been vaccinated against COVID-19.

Until more details are officially announced about its policy change in advertising, Twitter has sought to reassure users that their safety will not be affected by the decision.

“As with all policy changes, we will first ensure that our approach to reviewing and approving content protects people on Twitter,” the @TwitterSafety account tweeted.