Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s recent announcement that political advertising would no longer have a place on the platform has plenty of people riled up – but all for different reasons.

Twitter representatives reportedly met with advertisers last week to delve further into the details of the social media platform’s impending political ad ban.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey announced the ban in a Tweet at the end of October, assuring users that further details would be announced before it comes into effect on 22 November.

We’ve made the decision to stop all political advertising on Twitter globally. We believe political message reach should be earned, not bought. Why? A few reasons…

— jack (@jack) October 30, 2019

The announcement was celebrated and scrutinised across the board for a variety of reasons – many see the move as a way of preventing politicians and corporations from being able to pay to spread misinformation, while others are concerned that the ban will effectively neuter the voice of smaller activists.

Much of the concern also surrounds the specificity of Dorsey’s phrasing; in the original announcement, the Twitter CEO said the ban would comprise both ‘candidate ads’ and ‘issue ads’.

According to one advertiser who attended the meeting with Twitter, the distinction lies in the issue’s relevance to legislation.

“For candidates, it seems like none of that advertising is going to be allowed,” the advertiser tells Buzzfeed News. “For issue advocacy, the rules are a little bit more permissive.”

For example, an ad pushing people to watch a documentary on climate change would still be allowed on Twitter post-22 November, but an ad encouraging people to vote on a piece of climate change legislation would not.

“The exceptions, from what Twitter [global VP of revenue and content partnerships Matt] Derella has told me,” the advertiser continues, “will be for organisations that are not directly talking about a legislative issue.”

Twitter says full details of the new policy will be available on 15 November.

Further Reading:

• Twitter will ban all paid political advertising by the end of 2019 »
• Twitter publicly displays ad spend, demographic targeting data and more for Federal Election advertisers »

Image credit:Markus Spiske