Political advertising has been banned on Twitter since 2019. Now the text message service is taking the step that many feared after it was taken over by billionaire Musk: the company is giving up this strict regulation and wants to “revise” its guidelines on this.
Twitter is relaxing its policy on political advertising. The US short message service will revise its policy for “advertising on social issues” in the United States and “align it with that of television and other media,” said the company of new owner Elon Musk. Twitter did not give details of what that should look like.
The company also announced that the guidelines for event-related advertising in the United States will be adjusted. This is advertising that is intended to raise people’s awareness of categories such as civic engagement, economic growth, environmental protection or social justice.
Twitter banned political advertising in 2019 after criticizing the social media company and other services like Facebook for not comprehensively addressing election misinformation. The company then also restricted ads related to social causes.
Advertisers have been running away from Twitter since Musk took over at the end of October. They expressed concern over Musk’s plans to relax content moderation rules in the name of freedom of expression. Critics warn that the platform could become a staging ground for hate speech, misinformation and conspiracy theories.
