On October 30th, 2019, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey announced that the social media giant “made the decision to stop all political advertising on Twitter globally.” This move echoes the up and coming social media video platform TikTok’s decision to do the same thing. The decision to ban political advertisements was praised by the community as a whole, but caused their stock to drop by around 1%.
Facebook, on the other hand, has doubled down on its previous decision to allow any and all political advertisement on its platform. In a speech given in Georgetown, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said that while he had had considered banning political advertisements, he ultimately decided not to, citing the opportunity for greater expression by leaving them up.
Opposing sides of the political fence had much different reactions to Twitters decision. Democratic Senator Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez praised the decision, saying that platforms have “a powerful responsibility in preserving the integrity of our elections.” In contrast, President Trump’s campaign manager Brad Parscale called Twitter’s decision “yet another attempt by the left to silence Trump and conservatives.”
To learn more about this, consider reading this article on CNBC: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/30/twitter-bans-political-ads-after-facebook-refused-to-do-so.html
LIS 4022 Spring 2020 