This Friday, Twitter will cease political advertising on its social media. I like the concept, but I’m not sure this rollout is going to go smoothly.

Strategy and Definitions

I think this is a great idea. Twitter is banning political ads from its service which is advantageous in a few ways.

  1. They don’t have to worry about any misinformation of false news that Facebook’s currently battling with.
  2. There’s no worry about any worrying ads or inflammatory speech which could harm the public.
  3. People can have a little reprieve from politics and division in their Twitter feeds (unless they follow political tweeters).
  4. As Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s legal, policy and trust and safety lead, said: “Political reach should be earned and not bought.”
  5. It wasn’t a big portion of their revenue anyway.

I’m excited about this concept, especially with how Twitter defines political ads.

“We define political content as content that references a candidate, political party, elected or appointed government official, election, referendum, ballot measure, legislation, regulation, directive or judicial outcome.”

Twitter, in its newly detailed policy

I think this is a smart move in the long run with the 2020 elections coming up. As the first, Twitter will be revolutionary and could potentially set a standard for social media companies.

What could go wrong

There’s a lot of organizing that needs to occur for this launch. For example, Planned Parenthood supposedly can promote the use of safe sex through contraceptives and birth control. But, they must stray away from any talk about abortion legislation. This can get confusing when it comes to issues of advocacy. Also, non-defined political agendas might be able to slip through the cracks. Lastly, it may be harder for less-well-known politicians or issues to make their way to the forefront of conversation without paid promotion.

Essentially, there’s going to have to be a trial and error period which may result in bad press for Twitter as they figure out the kinks in the policy.

But, I think it’s the best answer to an impossible question of how to handle political advertising. There isn’t the perfect solution, but it’s the best answer Twitter could have made. I’m excited to see how this plays out.