Twitter will no longer allow political and issue ads on the platform, CEO Jack Dorsey announced 40 minutes ahead of Facebook’s Q3 earnings call. The final policy on political ads will be released by November 15 and will be enforced from November 22, to give advertisers enough notice period. This now pits the two social media giants against each other when it comes to regulating (or not) political speech on their respective platforms. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's CEO, has spent much of this month arguing that Facebook will not adjudicate political speech at all, both in organic content and in ads. https://twitter.com/jack/status/1189634360472829952 What is a political ad? Vijaya Gadde, the Lead Counsel at Twitter, defined political ads in a tweet as “ads that refer to an election or a candidate” or “ads that advocate for or against legislative issues of national importance (such as: climate change, healthcare, immigration, national security, taxes)". She, in a reply, said that it would include ads related to abortion. As Dorsey said in his thread, there will be exceptions to political ads, such as, ads in support of voter registration will still be allowed, but these will be clarified only in the final policy. The ban will include both candidate and issue ads. 'Not about free expression, but about paying for political reach': Dorsey throws shade at Zuckerberg Dorsey's entire thread, including its timing, was aimed at lambasting Facebook's stance on political ads. Sent out a mere 40 minutes before Facebook's Q3 earnings call, Dorsey said…
