Good for Twitter and Jack Dorsey!

Mikael Thalen reports in the Daily Dot,

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey announced a ban on Wednesday of all political advertising on the social media platform.

In a lengthy Twitter thread, Dorsey outlined his company’s decision and argued that a political message’s reach “should be earned, not bought.”

“A political message earns reach when people decide to follow an account or retweet,” Dorsey said. “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.”

...“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,” Dorsey said. “All at increasing velocity, sophistication, and overwhelming scale.”

...“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,” Dorsey said. “All at increasing velocity, sophistication, and overwhelming scale.”

...The statement appears to be in reference to fellow tech giant Facebook, which has stated that it will allow political advertisements even if they include false information.

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

Dorsey further called for regulators to create a framework for online political advertising to help “ensure a level playing field.”

...Twitter plans to reveal its final policy and begin enforcement in mid-November. Dorsey noted that some exemptions would exist, such as ads surrounding voter registration.

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