After having announced its decision to ban all political ads on its platform, the social media giant Twitter now has the tough task of actually putting out a policy even while facing potential protests and questions about its policy. The announcement was made about two weeks ago by the company CEO Jack Dorsey even while there was controversy over the Facebook’s denial that it would not look into the contents of political ads being published on its platform.
The first iteration of its new policies surrounding political advertisements on its platform was unveiled by the San Francisco-based company on Friday. While the announcement by Twitter was welcomed, a number of questions what can be described as a political ad and how the company would implement the ban has had been raised.
According to experts, the unveiling made by Twitter is just a rough outline of a policy and the company still needs much more to do in order to add further details. Analysts also predict that a detailed policy form the company will result in a backlash and the company is also aware of that.
“This is entirely new terrain,” said Vijaya Gadde, legal, policy, and trust and safety lead at Twitter, in a call with reporters. There are a lot of specifics to figure out for the company especially on the global level, she acknowledged, and conceded that some of the portions of the policy could also be subjective in nature. “We’re also prepared that we’re going to make some mistakes, and we’re going to have to learn and improve this policy over time,” she said.
Twitter will not be able to roll out the details of its new policy before November 22 but wants to come out with more information prior to that. The company however said that it is working fast.
The decision of Twitter to announce the ban on political ads was essentially a very successful public relations exercise because not much of its total revenues is accounted for by political ads. Such ads only generated about $3 million out of total revenue of $3 billion that the company generated in 2018. However given the severe criticism that Facebook is facing over its policy over checking of content for false facts in political ads, the measure taken by Twitter gave it a leg up over its rivals.
But the actual test for the company is now and people will be looking out for how the company puts the ban in place. This is so because Twitter is not known for being very efficient in handling of abusive behavior and offensive content on its platform and analysts say that the company is likely to goof up on some occasions this time too. For example, while the company had initially announced that it would put in a complete ban on political ads, it now says that it will allow some the meets qualifications set by it.
(Source:www.vox.com)
The first iteration of its new policies surrounding political advertisements on its platform was unveiled by the San Francisco-based company on Friday. While the announcement by Twitter was welcomed, a number of questions what can be described as a political ad and how the company would implement the ban has had been raised.
According to experts, the unveiling made by Twitter is just a rough outline of a policy and the company still needs much more to do in order to add further details. Analysts also predict that a detailed policy form the company will result in a backlash and the company is also aware of that.
“This is entirely new terrain,” said Vijaya Gadde, legal, policy, and trust and safety lead at Twitter, in a call with reporters. There are a lot of specifics to figure out for the company especially on the global level, she acknowledged, and conceded that some of the portions of the policy could also be subjective in nature. “We’re also prepared that we’re going to make some mistakes, and we’re going to have to learn and improve this policy over time,” she said.
Twitter will not be able to roll out the details of its new policy before November 22 but wants to come out with more information prior to that. The company however said that it is working fast.
The decision of Twitter to announce the ban on political ads was essentially a very successful public relations exercise because not much of its total revenues is accounted for by political ads. Such ads only generated about $3 million out of total revenue of $3 billion that the company generated in 2018. However given the severe criticism that Facebook is facing over its policy over checking of content for false facts in political ads, the measure taken by Twitter gave it a leg up over its rivals.
But the actual test for the company is now and people will be looking out for how the company puts the ban in place. This is so because Twitter is not known for being very efficient in handling of abusive behavior and offensive content on its platform and analysts say that the company is likely to goof up on some occasions this time too. For example, while the company had initially announced that it would put in a complete ban on political ads, it now says that it will allow some the meets qualifications set by it.
(Source:www.vox.com)
