Twitter bans political ads

On October 30th Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey tweeted that twitter would be banning political ads starting Nov 22. The final policy will be announced by Nov  15 and they’ll start to enforce this on the 22nd. 

“A political message earns reach when people decide to follow an account or retweet. Paying for reach removes that decision, forcing highly optimized and targeted political messages on people. We believe this decision should not be compromised by money, ” Dorsey said.

Candidates can still post about themselves on their own accounts they just can’t pay to get their posts on other people’s feed anymore. Any ads refer to campaigns,  candidates, or issues that aren’t allowed. Issues like abortion, guns, immigration, and etc. There are also exceptions to the policy, like ads that encourage voter registration.

“It’s not a good idea because most people nowadays are usually on social media so they need to see when it pops up like oh yeah, it’s time to vote like things like that especially people that are just turning 18,” senior Sorainy Gonzalez said.

“I think that twitter banning political ads helps create less conflict on twitter because when it comes to politics, people on twitter can become ruthless. I guess it just creates less drama because there’s less of a space to share your opinion. but then again, people don’t get to learn about what’s going on without those advertisements,” freshman Jenna Saykhamphone said.