Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s controversial co-founder and CEO, has just tweeted news that will have a substantial effect on politics worldwide: the social media platform is banning all political advertising.
In a series of well-thought-out tweets, Dorsey explains his company believes “political message reach should be earned, not bought.”
That was the first indication he was about to take a massive swing at Facebook, which has been under fire for allowing incredible manipulation of the targeting abilities its platform offers advertisers. Facebook was the tool of choice for Russia’s attack on the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, and it’s only getting worse.
Now Facebook is attacking liberal publishers it claims are posting false information or “clickbait,” while ignoring its own rules in order to let big money advertisers, like the Trump campaign, post ads Facebook knows are not just false or misleading, but downright lies. It is also looking away as big money conservative sites violate Facebook’s rules.
Twitter’s CEO appeared to slam Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg for that, writing: “it‘s not credible for us to say: ‘We’re working hard to stop people from gaming our systems to spread misleading info, buuut if someone pays us to target and force people to see their political ad…well…they can say whatever they want!'”
Zuckerberg recently claimed he’s concerned about protecting free speech, regardless of its content, suggesting the marketplace of ideas will sort everything out – it won’t.
Dorsey notes some “political” ads, like those in support of voter registration will still be allowed.