Twitter Bans Political Ads

[lpetrich]

jack on Twitter: "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…" / Twitter

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…

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.

Internet political ads present entirely new challenges to civic discourse: machine learning-based optimization of messaging and micro-targeting, unchecked misleading information, and deep fakes. All at increasing velocity, sophistication, and overwhelming scale.

These challenges will affect ALL internet communication, not just political ads. Best to focus our efforts on the root problems, without the additional burden and complexity taking money brings. Trying to fix both means fixing neither well, and harms our credibility.

For instance, it‘s not credible for us to say: “We’re working hard to stop people from gaming our systems to spread misleading info, buuut if someone pays us to target and force people to see their political ad…well...they can say whatever they want! ”

We considered stopping only candidate ads, but issue ads present a way to circumvent. Additionally, it isn’t fair for everyone but candidates to buy ads for issues they want to push. So we're stopping these too.

We’re well aware we‘re a small part of a much larger political advertising ecosystem. Some might argue our actions today could favor incumbents. But we have witnessed many social movements reach massive scale without any political advertising. I trust this will only grow.

In addition, we need more forward-looking political ad regulation (very difficult to do). Ad transparency requirements are progress, but not enough. The internet provides entirely new capabilities, and regulators need to think past the present day to ensure a level playing field.

We’ll share the final policy by 11/15, including a few exceptions (ads in support of voter registration will still be allowed, for instance). We’ll start enforcing our new policy on 11/22 to provide current advertisers a notice period before this change goes into effect.

A final note. This isn’t about free expression. This is about paying for reach. And paying to increase the reach of political speech has significant ramifications that today’s democratic infrastructure may not be prepared to handle. It’s worth stepping back in order to address.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

I didn't even know Twitter has adds. That's how closely I follow twitter. I still refuse to use anything that calls something a "tweet".

 

[lpetrich]

That was Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.

Likely provoked by AOC's questioning of Facebook CEO Mike Zuckerberg. His answers were hopelessly lame. Like being unaware of why it would be a very low blow to claim that a Republican supports her GND. She had a nice response to this announcement:

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "This is a good call. Technology - and social media especially - has a powerful responsibility in preserving the integrity of our elections.
Not allowing for paid disinformation is one of the most basic, ethical decisions a company can make.
/1" / Twitter

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "Many folks have asked whether I believe all social media political ads should be banned outright.
I believe that if a company cannot or does not wish to run basic fact-checking on paid political advertising, then they should not run paid political ads at all.
/2" / Twitter

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "I say this as a candidate that runs digital ads & believe they can be productive + useful *IF* used responsibly.
People say that tech companies can’t fact check, but basic fact checking isn’t hard. We‘re talking abt blocking outright disinformation: wrong vote records, etc." / Twitter

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I didn't even know Twitter has adds. That's how closely I follow twitter. I still refuse to use anything that calls something a "tweet".

Yup. Zero tweets here. For a while I followed a very funny handle that posted nothing but pictures with the "correct" names for things (like a sheep being labeled "land cloud".) For some reason it got banned, I haven't done anything with it since.

 

[ZiprHead]

I didn't even know Twitter has adds. That's how closely I follow twitter. I still refuse to use anything that calls something a "tweet".

Way to take a stand, bubba.

 

[krypton iodine sulfur]

I have a hard time getting my head around how much different 'earned' is from 'bought' in practice. I'm not saying it isn't significant from Twitter's perspective and how their platform operates, mind you.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Does the book or faces still have adds? I left that many moons ago.

 

[krypton iodine sulfur]

It has both ads including political ads. They're embedded in your feed as sponsored content. During the federal election, it was sending me targeted ads from candidates specific to my electoral district as well as ads from third party groups such as Canada Proud.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Does the book or faces still have adds? I left that many moons ago.

You never seem to pay attention to this stuff.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Does the book or faces still have adds? I left that many moons ago.

You never seem to pay attention to this stuff.

Correct. I pay no attention to the twit of tweet or the book of faces. Should I? I believe that both rot the mind.

The only online "social media" I do use are Quara, LinkedIn and various message boards like this one.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Does the book or faces still have adds? I left that many moons ago.

You never seem to pay attention to this stuff.

Correct. I pay no attention to the twit of tweet or the book of faces. Should I?

You do realize you can pay attention to the people running these companies without actually using the product right?

I believe that both rot the mind.

So it rots the mind, but you don't pay any attention regarding those running such companies when brought before Congress to deal with all the crap they are doing.

 

[Gun Nut]

I think that Facebook should be fined for their involvement in the spread of misinformation, to the tune of the amount of money the government has and will be spending on resolving the problem they created and setting up appropriate regulations like those that have existed for decades around network television.
The problem is that there are more people in our legislative and judicial branches that have never sent an email in their lives than not... so we will get asinine rules... just like gun control laws that give us bump stocks and the like from people that don't know the difference between auto and semi-auto.

 

[Worldtraveller]

Correct. I pay no attention to the twit of tweet or the book of faces. Should I?

You do realize you can pay attention to the people running these companies without actually using the product right?

I believe that both rot the mind.

So it rots the mind, but you don't pay any attention regarding those running such companies when brought before Congress to deal with all the crap they are doing.

Rot the mind?

What, exactly, is the qualitative difference between FB, twitter, and an online forum.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

You do realize you can pay attention to the people running these companies without actually using the product right?
So it rots the mind, but you don't pay any attention regarding those running such companies when brought before Congress to deal with all the crap they are doing.

Rot the mind?

What, exactly, is the qualitative difference between FB, twitter, and an online forum.

I'd say Twitter and Facebook provide almost no avenues for discussions. It is pretty much a bean eating festival. It can be an echo chamber, but generally the noise to content ratio is rarely going to be low enough to allow for transferring ideas

A web forum has an opportunity to provide both longer discussions and POV. Note, I said "opportunity". Sure, the likes of dismal and Jimmy Higgins have rarely ever changed each others mind, but I think we do see a tempering and sharing of ideas here at least on the left.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Correct. I pay no attention to the twit of tweet or the book of faces. Should I?

You do realize you can pay attention to the people running these companies without actually using the product right?

I believe that both rot the mind.

So it rots the mind, but you don't pay any attention regarding those running such companies when brought before Congress to deal with all the crap they are doing.

You seem to be insisting that I should care. I don't. Sorry. If people want to rot their minds I'm not really too bothered by that. I liken it to trash TV or tabloid supermarket magazines.

 

[Keith&Co.]

I have a hard time getting my head around how much different 'earned' is from 'bought' in practice. I'm not saying it isn't significant from Twitter's perspective and how their platform operates, mind you.

They were just looking for a way NOT to sound like Mom taking your toy away because you cannot be trusted not to blind your sister.

Like parents, they don't serk justice as much as they want to be left alone.




And in my defense, the dog had TOTALLY chewed off the affixed bayonet.

 

[laughing dog]

You do realize you can pay attention to the people running these companies without actually using the product right?
So it rots the mind, but you don't pay any attention regarding those running such companies when brought before Congress to deal with all the crap they are doing.

Rot the mind?

What, exactly, is the qualitative difference between FB, twitter, and an online forum.

One difference is the first two don't have JP on them.

 

[Trausti]

I think that Facebook should be fined for their involvement in the spread of misinformation,

Cool idea. And fine all the channels and newspapers that also spread misinformation. But who will decide what is and is not misinformation? We need a Ministry of Truth. Government regulation of speech, what could go wrong?

 

[Keith&Co.]

I think that Facebook should be fined for their involvement in the spread of misinformation,

Cool idea. And fine all the channels and newspapers that also spread misinformation. But who will decide what we is and is not misinformation? We need a Ministry of Truth. Government regulation of speech, what could go wrong?

^This. Jefferson wanted free speech to only protect the Truth. But when everyone said, 'Okay, how?' he was unable to offer any useful mechanism.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

You do realize you can pay attention to the people running these companies without actually using the product right?
So it rots the mind, but you don't pay any attention regarding those running such companies when brought before Congress to deal with all the crap they are doing.

You seem to be insisting that I should care. I don't. Sorry. If people want to rot their minds I'm not really too bothered by that. I liken it to trash TV or tabloid supermarket magazines.

Well, thanks for the crop dusting then.