Skip to main content

Twitter to ban political ads worldwide on its platform

Twitter , political ads

WASHINGTON: Twitter said Wednesday it would stop accepting political advertising globally on its platform, responding to growing concerns over misinformation from politicians on social media.

Chief executive Jack Dorsey tweeted that while internet advertising “is incredibly powerful and very effective for commercial advertisers, that power brings significant risks to politics, where it can be used to influence votes to affect the lives of millions.”

The move comes with Facebook under pressure to apply fact-checking to politicians running ads with debunked claims.

Dorsey said the new policy, details of which will be unveiled next month and enforced from November 22, would ban ads on political issues as well as from candidates.

“We considered stopping only candidate ads, but issue ads present a way to circumvent,” he said.

“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 said the company took the action to head off potential problems from “machine learning-based optimization of messaging and micro-targeting, unchecked misleading information, and deep fakes.”

Twitter’s move comes in contrast to the Facebook policy that allows political speech and ads to run without fact-checking on the leading social network.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said political advertising is not a major source of revenue but adds that he believes it is important to allow everyone a “voice,” and that banning political ads would favor incumbents.

Dorsey said he disagreed with Zuckerberg’s assessment.

“We have witnessed many social movements reach massive scale without any political advertising. I trust this will only grow,” he added.

“This is the right thing to do for democracy in America and all over the world,” 2016 US Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton tweeted.

“What say you, @Facebook ?” she asked, calling out the other social media giant.

Twitter’s chief financial officer Ned Segal said the move would have little financial impact.

“Since we are getting questions: This decision was based on principle, not money,” he said. “As context, we’ve disclosed that political ad spend for the 2018 US midterms was (less than) $3M.”

The post Twitter to ban political ads worldwide on its platform appeared first on ARY NEWS.



from ARY NEWS https://ift.tt/2Py0zCI
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Rouhani calls Imran, discusses resumption of trade

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan and Iran on Wednesday discussed full resumption of bilateral trade, which was halted last month because of the Covid-19 pandemic. “The two sides stressed the need to reactivate borders and border markets and strengthen trade ties by following health guidelines,” a statement issued by the Iranian presidency on the telephonic conversation between Prime Minister Imran Khan and President Dr Hassan Rouhani said. President Rouhani had called the prime minister for Ramazan greetings. Border trade between the two countries was suspended after a meeting of the National Security Committee (NSC), held on March 13, decided to close all borders because of the pandemic. Islamabad partially relaxed the restrictions on April 21, allowing the import of certain food items and provision of petrol and diesel to the border areas. Cargo traffic from Iran was allowed for three days every week. Cargo movement between the two countries takes place through five border crossings — Taftan...
Post a Comment
Read more

Today’s outlook: Sindh CM discusses reopening markets with PM Khan

Here are some of the stories we are expecting to follow today (Thursday): Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah will take Prime Minister Imran Khan into confidence over reopening shops and markets across the province. The reopened markets will have to follow SOPs. Sindh Transport Minister Awais Qadir Shah will discuss SOPs with transporters for resuming public transport in the coming days. The meeting will be held at the Sindh Assembly building at 1:30pm. The Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority has proposed a price cut of Rs20.68 per litre for petrol in its summary. Imam-e-Kaaba Sheikh Abdul Rahman Al-Sudais has said Masjid Al Haram and Masjid Al Nabawi will be reopened for worshipers soon. He said the Kaaba is being sterilised using latest technologies. Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar will head various meetings during his visit to Bahawalpur. As of Thursday, Pakistan has reported more than 15,500 confirmed coronavirus cases. ICYMI: An amendment to the National Accountability Or...
Post a Comment
Read more

If Pakistani elderly self-distance infections could drop 30%: study

If we do nothing, COVID-19 could infect 206 million Pakistanis and kill 691,000. This is the estimation of researchers from the Imperial College London COVID-19 Response Team who have published country-wise projections in a March 26 report ‘ The Global Impact of COVID-19 and Strategies for Mitigation and Suppression ’ Furthermore, using an infection fatality rate from China, this means 4.4 million Pakistanis would require hospitalisation and from among those, 917,000 individuals would require critical care. Pakistan has a population of 220 million people. The research is based on the infection fatality rate from China, country health care system capacities and that one person with coronavirus is likely to infect 3 others. (You can find the excel sheet with Pakistan numbers here: Imperial-College-COVID19-Global-unmitigated-mitigated-suppression-scenarios.xlsx ) Forty-seven researchers crunched the numbers and made these projections to give countries, including Pakistan, some idea of...
Post a Comment
Read more