Twitter’s Announcement on Banning Political Ads Is a Subtweet of Mark Zuckerberg

On Wednesday, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey announced that the platform would stop running political ads globally. “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,” Dorsey wrote in a thread about the decision.

The CEO further argued that the reach of a political message should be earned based how users respond to it, and that paying to boost a post’s reach compromises that dynamic. He pointed out that emerging online trends such as deepfakes, misinformation, and machine-learning-based ad targeting are accelerating at a rapid pace and threaten to warp political conversations. In a final tweet, Dorsey maintained that this is not a matter of free expression, but rather the way in which money amplifies speech. Business analysts estimate that money from political ads likely does not make up a large portion of Twitter’s revenue.

Twitter will release the details of the new policy on Nov. 15 and being enforcing it on Nov. 22. The ban will apply to both ads purchased by campaigns and those having to do with political issues. Dorsey indicated that the company was concerned that allowing issue ads would create a loophole in the policy. He clarified that there will be a few exceptions for certain topics, such as voter turnout efforts.