Twitter will soon require US organizations, which purchase issue-specific ads, to disclose more information about themselves. They will also have to begin labeling issue ads as promoted in a bid to "increase transparency" about advertising on the platform. Executives of the company announced the policy change in a blog post. The new policy targets 'promoted content' referring to an election or political candidates and "ads that advocate for legislative issues of national importance." These include organizations which advocate for issues including abortion, civil rights, climate change, guns, healthcare, immigration, national security, social security, taxes, and trade among others. To purchase ads in either category, promoters have to verify their identity and be located within the US. If approved for promoting issues, all such ads will be labeled with a "promoted" tag. Promoted tweets, and their accounts will have to furnish in each tweet which organization paid for that ad. The new policy will come into effect from September 30 only in the US. Earlier in May, Twitter had brought in a similar policy for political campaigns and ads as well, the company added certification requirements for those running political campaigns ads. The company is introducing these policies in wake of events over the last year which have reduced public trust in tech companies such as Facebook and Twitter, and invited the threat of regulation and lawsuits from US lawmakers. The policy change comes a week after global tech giants — Facebook, Twitter, Google, Microsoft — discovered and terminated influence campaigns which…
