Twitter’s Ban on Political Ads Will Hurt Activists, Labor Groups, and Organizers
The company’s feel-good decision is already a mess
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey announced on Wednesday that the company will ban political advertising, a move that earned the company a rare wave of positive press.
Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan called it “heartening.” New York Times op-ed columnist Kara Swisher suggested it might be “the best subtweet ever,” referring to the implicit jab at rival Facebook. The move contrasts with Facebook’s recent decision not only to continue running political ads, but exempt them from its normal fact-checking processes — a policy that has allowed Donald Trump to promote false claims on the social network and encouraged others to do the same.
There’s something to be said for a tech platform taking its responsibilities to the democratic process seriously. But banning political ads is not as straightforward, nor as obviously correct, as those cheering Dorsey’s announcement seem to think.
The problem is twofold. First, defining which ads count as “political” gets tricky in a hurry. Second, prioritizing commercial speech over political speech is itself a political stance, and not necessarily one that we should want our online communication platforms to…
