On Tuesday, January 3, Twitter announced a relaxation of his forbidding rule, for three years, almost all political advertisements on the social network. Ads for a “cause” will now be allowed again, and eventually so will election ads. “We believe causal announcements improve public discourse on important topics”writes the company.
Twitter had banned all political and election advertising since 2019, on the direct decision of the company’s co-founder, and then chairman and chief executive officer, Jack Dorsey. Mr. Dorsey had figured it out “The dissemination of a political message must be earned, not bought”.
Relax all rules of moderation
The other major social networks all allow, with different limitations, political ads. Even the definition of what constitutes a “cause” or a political entity varies from one platform to another, including Twitter, which in practice authorized the advertising of certain environmental groups or associations that defend social causes.
The U-turn is one of many changes Musk has instituted since his takeover of Twitter, all geared towards easing or removing all moderation rules on the platform. Mr. Musk thus removed the rules that prohibited disinformation on Covid-19, fired the vast majority of the platform’s moderators and reactivated the accounts of multiple far-right personalities.
