Comment on this story
comment
Twitter announced it was relaxing its ban on political and issue-related advertising on Tuesday, a reversal of the company’s longstanding approach to paid political speaking.
The policy change, which comes at a time when major advertisers are migrating from the ailing social media platform, would allow candidates and advocacy groups to spend money to promote themselves and their causes on the service.
“We believe that cause-based advertising can facilitate public conversations about important issues. Today we’re relaxing our advertising policy for ad hoc advertising in the US. We also plan to expand the political advertising that we allow in the coming weeks,” the tweet said said.
A second tweet clarified that the company would first ensure its approach to “content review and approval is protecting people on Twitter.”
Advertisers are dropping Twitter. Musk can’t afford to lose any more.
Twitter has long taken a principled stance on political advertising. When then-CEO Jack Dorsey announced the political advertising bans in 2019, he said it was because he firmly believed political messages “should be earned, not bought.” This language was then published on the company’s website and was still there as of Tuesday afternoon.
The sudden reversal was characteristic of the sloppy and chaotic way Twitter is run under its new owner, billionaire Elon Musk. The company announced the change and promised to “share more details” once work begins. There was no explanation as to why Twitter made the changes or how extensive the changes would be.
Twitter did not respond to a request for comment.
Since buying the company in late October, Musk has ushered in a whirlwind of change. He recently said the workforce is just over 2,000, up from 7,500 in early 2022. That means about 75 percent of the workforce has been laid off, displaced or terminated. He has rolled back policies aimed at curbing Covid-related misinformation and allowed handpicked journalists access to Twitter documents, including ordering that one be allowed access to Twitter’s internal systems – prompting some employees to protest, that this prompted them to break a law consent. He screwed up the company’s first major launch — a paid blue tick — and had to pause it.
While Twitter has always been a marginal player in political advertising compared to Google or Facebook, Tuesday’s move will allow political groups and figures to run in upcoming election campaigns. Some high profile Republicans gained followers on Twitter in the months leading up to Musk’s acquisition, according to data analyzed by The Washington Post.
Politicians and advocacy groups have previously complained that restricting all these types of advertising is unfair because some contain misinformation. Facebook went in the opposite direction ahead of the 2020 election, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg arguing that it is not the company’s responsibility to fact-check political ads and such ads would be allowed to appear on the service.
Political ads were also relatively irrelevant to Twitter’s overall business. At the time of the ad ban, the company’s chief financial officer said political ads brought in about $3 million in revenue — a tiny fraction of a billion-dollar ad business on the platform.
Racist tweets quickly surface after Musk closes the Twitter deal
But a number of advertisers stopped spending on the platform after Musk’s acquisition, citing concerns about ownership, content appearing on the site, and mass layoffs. Musk, who bought the company for $44 billion, also owes about $1 billion in interest payments each year.
Shortly after Musk’s takeover, a spate of racist and anti-Semitic tweets surfaced on the social media platform.
Some digital strategists hailed the change in policy on Tuesday, though they said it’s too early to tell how big a player Twitter will become in 2024 for political advertising. Campaigns are increasingly navigating a fragmented digital advertising environment as voters spend more time on a greater variety of social networks – including Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok.
But other major social networks – including TikTok – continue to have broad political advertising bans in place.
“Of course it’s good to have more options,” said Republican digital strategist Eric Wilson. He said there would be a “learning curve” for campaigns returning to Twitter as their data on the platform’s effectiveness is outdated, and they would need to go through any changes Twitter has made to its advertising tools.
However, he said political campaigns are likely to be spent on the platform as long as it continues to be used by journalists.
“We know voters aren’t as active on Twitter as they are on places like Facebook and Instagram,” he said. “But it remains important for shaping political narratives.”
Cat Zakrzewski contributed to this report.