In a new direction that seems to upset President Donald Trump's campaign manager, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey announced that his platform will stop accepting political advertising globally.
"We made the decision to stop all political advertising on a global tension," Dorsey tweeted. "We believe that the reach of the political message must be acquired, not purchased."He added that the political message should be reached "when people decide to follow an account or retweet. Paying for access removes this decision, which imposes very improved and targeted political messages to the people.
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… ?? - jack ?????? (@jack) October 30, 2019 |
Ted's chief financial officer, Ned Segal, also tweeted on Wednesday that the company had made less than $ 3 million in political announcements for the 2018 session.
Since we are getting questions: This decision was based on principle, not money. As context, we've disclosed that political ad spend for the 2018 US midterms was <$ 3M. There is no change to our Q4 guidance. I am proud to work @twitter! #LoveWhereYouWork https://t.co/U9I0o1woev - Ned Segal (@nedsegal) October 30, 2019 |
This comes amid intense scrutiny of the way Silicon Valley companies deal with political advertising. Social media companies, especially Facebook, are criticized for allowing politicians to post false advertisements.
Dorsey's comments put him in stark contrast to Facebook's top executives, including Zuckerberg and Cheryl Sandberg, who strongly defended the company's policy of not verifying political advertising information.
Zuckerberg reiterated his position on the political announcement yesterday, highlighting the divergence between Facebook and Twitter policies.
Without a direct reference to Dorsey's announcement, Zuckerberg opened the Facebook third-quarter revenue statement by saying, "We need to be careful about adopting more and more rules" surrounding the political discourse.
He said that the political announcement will represent less than 0.5% of revenues next year, noting that despite the media debate about Facebook policies, the company benefits little financially from this. Yesterday, Facebook reported quarterly advertising revenue of $ 17.38 billion, up 28% from the same period last year.
Trump is not satisfied
On the other hand, it seems that Twitter's decision was not good for Donald Trump's campaign, as campaign manager Brad Parskill described Twitter's move as "a very stupid decision for shareholders."
"This is another attempt to silence conservatives," he said in a statement. "Twitter knows that President Trump has the most complicated program on the Internet."
| Twitter decision disliked Trisk campaign manager Barskill (French) |
In a lengthy tweet about Twitter's decision, Dorsey said, "While online advertising is powerful and very effective for commercial advertisers, this power brings great risks to politics as it can be used to woo votes to affect the lives of millions."
He also said Twitter would also stop publishing case announcements, which Twitter describes as "advocating or opposing legislative issues of national importance."
In his speech in Washington, Zuckerberg cited case announcements as another reason not to ban political ads. "Even if we want to ban political ads, it is unclear where we will draw the line. Will we ban all advertisements for health care, immigration or women's empowerment? "
Dorsey said his company would share more details about its new policy on November 15 and would stop accepting political announcements on 22 November.