Twitter to lift ban on political ads in the upcoming weeks

Twitter announced on Tuesday that it will expand the scope of political advertisements it allows to appear on the platform in the upcoming weeks.

Political ads were mostly banned by the social media company back in November 2019, when the co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey said that ‘’political message reach should be earned, not bought.’’

The Twitter Safety team also revealed yesterday that Twitter is relaxing its ads policy for cause-based ads, those that aim to raise awareness around important topics like climate change, in the United States.

‘’Moving forward, we will align our advertising policy with that of TV and other media outlets,’’ the company added. ‘’As with all policy changes, we will first ensure that our approach to reviewing and approving content protects people on Twitter. We’ll share more details as this work progresses.’’

The news comes at a time Twitter’s making drastic changes to its business in an effort to boost its revenue, a large portion of which is driven by advertisements.

Also Read: Twitter Revenue and Usage Statistics

After being acquired by Elon Musk for $44 billion in late October, Twitter laid off nearly half of its workforce, including staff from its trust and safety teams. Citing concerns over content moderation changes and the platform’s uncertainty, many companies such as General Mills, Audi, United Airlines, Pfizer pulled their ads from Twitter.

In late November, Musk also said that Apple mostly stopped advertising on Twitter, and threatened to withhold its app from the App Store without explaining why. After meeting up with Tim Cook, he said Apple fully resumed advertising on the platform, and never intended to remove its app.

‘’Just a note to thank advertisers for returning to Twitter,’’ Musk tweeted the same day.

To lure back advertisers and boost ad spending, Twitter also announced its ‘’biggest ad incentive ever’’ last month. Soon after that, it introduced new ad controls that now allow advertisers to prevent their ads from appearing next to content that include specific keywords.