According to Reuters, Twitter Inc. will lift its 2019 ban on political advertising as the Elon Musk-owned company looks to increase revenue. The report was based on interviews with Twitter’s head of trust and safety.
Tuesday saw a post from the social media platform’s Twitter Safety account announcing that it would ease its “cause-based marketing” policy in the US and align it with those of TV and other media outlets.
Although the Chinese video platform TikTok continues to forbid political marketing, the shift would put Twitter’s policy closer to those of Meta Platform’s Facebook and Alphabet Inc.’s YouTube, which permit political advertising.
The social media company stated, “We believe that cause-based advertising may stimulate public conversation around crucial issues.
According to Ella Irwin, Twitter’s head of trust and safety, cause-based advertisements that will be permitted on the platform include those that inform or increase awareness of topics like voter registration, climate change, or government initiatives like the Census.
Less than $3 million of the total expenditures for the 2018 US midterm elections went into political advertising, which made up a tiny portion of Twitter’s overall earnings.
After receiving harsh criticism for permitting the spread of election misinformation, Twitter and other social media platforms decided to restrict political advertisements in 2019. Additionally, it prohibited advertisements for social causes.
The announcement of the change was made via a tweet from Jack Dorsey, the former CEO of Twitter, who stated, “We think political message reach should be earned, not bought.”
Since Musk took over Twitter in late October, corporate advertisers have fled as a result of the Tesla CEO firing thousands of workers, undoing Donald Trump’s permanent suspension, and rushing a paid verification feature that led to scammers posing as publicly traded companies on the social media platform.
Last month, Musk defended his drastic cost-cutting tactics and said that Twitter would have a $3 billion “negative cash flow” in 2019.
