X (you might know it better as Twitter) has reversed its 2019 ban on political advertising saying that it wants to support “people’s right to accurate and safe political discourse.”
The changes will come into force in the US first, just in time for the Presidential election and hyper-online Republican primary process featuring Donald Trump and his mugshot as well as the deeply uncomfortable Ron DeSantis and walking 4Chan forum Vivek Ramaswamy.
X’s new political ads policy will focus on its “Freedom of Speech, Not Reach” maxim. It will add “publicly visible labels” to posts that it deems to violate its Civic Integrity Policy and let users know when their reach has been restricted.
It will also implement new policies for paid-for political promoted posts.
“This will include prohibiting the promotion of false or misleading content, including false or misleading information intended to undermine public confidence in an election, while seeking to preserve free and open political discourse,” it said.
“We’ll also provide a global advertising transparency centre so that everyone can review political posts being promoted on X, in addition to robust screening processes to ensure only eligible groups and campaigns are able to advertise.”
X — or Twitter as it used to be known — banned political ads four years ago after it, and other social media platforms, faced widespread criticism for allowing misinformation to spread on their platforms.
“We believe political message reach should be earned, not bought,” tweeted Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s then-chief executive, in announcing the move.
In its announcement of the new rules, X said that it is “currently expanding” its safety and elections teams “to focus on combating manipulation, surfacing inauthentic accounts and closely monitoring the platform for emerging threats.”
This will likely be some task for CEO Linda Yaccarino, after owner and chief technology officer Elon Musk, gutted these teams when he took control of Twitter.
In November last year, the company’s head of trust and safety, Yoel Roth, departed. In June, Ella Irwin, the company’s VP product – trust and safety, also resigned after a year in post. AJ Brown, the former head of brand safety & ad quality at Twitter, also resigned after just eight months in the role.
