This article was published on October 30, 2019

Jack Dorsey: Twitter will stop all political ads next month


Jack Dorsey: Twitter will stop all political ads next month

Twitter is making a big change to how it handles political ads: It’s getting rid of them altogether (with very few exceptions). Today Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey announced via tweetstorm that the company has “made the decision to stop all political advertising on Twitter globally” because Twitter believes “message reach should be earned, not bought.”

Dorsey basically says that a political meassage should earn its reach honestly; either by following an account or retweeting. Ad payments are highly optimized and targeted, compromising the element of choice. Moreover, internet ads specifically introduce specific challenges:

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Money also compromises how Twitter deals with curbing misinformation:

Dorsey acknowledges removing ads can help incumbents, but he’s confident political messages can grow without paid advertising:

The CEO says Twitter will share the final new ad policy by November 15. The company will begin to enforce the policy November 22. You can read the full 11-post tweetstorm here.

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