Jack Dorsey, who is the CEO of Twitter, revealed that early on Thursday that the platform will now going to stop all the political advertising on the Twitter across the globe.
Political and internet experts in India welcomed the move, which calls it a step in the right sort of direction, but they also remained sceptical of the step.
The Twitter move also assumes importance as it comes just a few days before the American Presidential elections. We have also made decisions to stop all the political advertising on twitter across the globe. We also believe the political message research should be earned, not brought. Dorsey also tweeted that around 1.30 am on Thursday before he delved into a wide range of reasons behind the company change in the policies.
The micro-blogging company has also revealed that it will stop both the candidate based and issue-based ads, but there will be a few of the exceptions. Ads in a support of the voter registration still be allowed, it added. Senior Twitter executive Vijaya Gadde elaborated on the current definition of the advertisement. They even refer to an election or a candidate, or advertisement that advocate for or even against the legislative issues of the national importance such as the healthcare, immigration, taxes, national security, and climate change, she revealed.
AAP social media and IT strategists Ankit Lal said that the party would be pleasantly surprised if Twitter managed to abide by their announcement. Twitter has a great revenue model, so it is difficult to see if they will follow through what they have said about the blanket ban until the final policy is out. But it is a good call, as because issues based on the advertisement are misused by the political parties, he revealed.
Rajeev Gowda, the Congress Member of Parliament, who heads the AICC research wings, questioned the purpose of a blanket ban, which says that the regulation should be enough to control and even curb the misleading political ads. It is even not that good idea to ban all kinds of political events.
We should even instead have stricter regulations. The election commission can play a major role in this aspect. Just like it vets the ads at the time of the elections, as they can have a fully dedicated team that goes via the content of each ad even when there are no elections he revealed.
BJP Former National Co-converter of the IT cell, Vinit Goenka, revealed that while Twitter is free to come up with its own policies regards to revenue generation, it is much more essential that it does so within the ambit of the Indian legislation. Twitter should even be able to decide where its revenue comes from and do not have any opinion on the change in the polices. My only concern was the anti-India ads that it previously ran on its platform. That advertisement did not abide by the regulations, and I had secured that issue with the company as well.
Trinamool parliament party leader in the Rajya Sabha revealed that this was a step in the right direction by Twitter. But when it comes to the misleading political advertisement, Facebook is by far the worst offender. In India, Facebook has even broken every rule in the book. Will they brazen it out again? He revealed.
Among some other things, Dorsey revealed that while the internet advertising is incredibly powerful and very effective commercial advertisers, that power brings major risks to the politics, where it can be highly used to influence votes to affect the lives of the millions.
A political message also earns reach when people decide to follow an account or even re-tweet. Paying for reach removes those decisions, forcing to highly optimized and targeted political message on the people. We believe that this decision should not be compromised by only.
The California based headquartered company revealed that it is still working on the policies and the final version that would be shared by the 15th of November. We will also start enforcing some of the new policies on the 11/22 to offer the current advertisers a notice period before this change goes into the effect, Dorsey also revealed.
Admitting that the internet of the world presents some of the new challenges to the civic discourse that includes unchecked misleading information and deep fakes, Dorsey revealed that these challenges would be going to affect all the internet communication, not just the political ads. Best to focus our efforts on the root problems, without the additional burden and complexity taking the money brings. Trying to fix both the means fixing neither well and harms out the credibility, he added.
Twitter had experienced harsh criticism in the 2016 US Presidential races for remote intercession and spread of falsehood on the stage. It had propelled a progression of activities to control these issues, including propelling an Ad Transparency Center in Europe, India, and Australia, where clients could see each paid political crusade alongside the cash spent on each, and the number of impressions it got.
“We’re very much aware we’re a little piece of a lot bigger political promoting the biological system. Some may contend our activities today could support occupants. In any case, we have seen numerous social developments arrive at a huge scale with no political publicizing. I confide in this will just develop,” Dorsey stated, which includes that “we need progressively forward-looking political promotion guideline.”
A final note is not about free expression. This is about paying for reach. And paying to increase the reach of the political speed has major ramifications that today democratic infrastructure may not be prepared to handle. It is even worth stepping back in order to address.
