The social network X, formerly known as Twitter, will once again allow political ads on its platform. The company announced the measure days after the first Republican debate and ahead of the 2024 presidential election. The practice will resume after four years when the former owners decided to suspend propaganda, believing that “the reach of political messages should be earned, not bought.”
In October 2019, Twitter announced a ban on propaganda. The announcement came from the fingers of Jack Dorsey, who made the announcement on the platform he directed. The decision had been made in response to Facebook, which at the time had refused to remove an ad from then-President Donald Trump’s campaign against now-President Joe Biden.
Now, with Elon Musk owning X, things have reversed. The return of political ads was announced on Tuesday, August 29, in a post on the company’s blog. “This will include prohibiting the promotion of false or misleading content, including false or misleading information intended to undermine public confidence in an election, while seeking to preserve free and open political discourse,” they wrote.
“We have rules in place to help protect the safety and authenticity of conversations on X. During elections, our Civic Integrity Policy provides an extra layer of protection that is applied for a limited period of time before and during an election. We’re updating this policy to make sure we strike the right balance between tackling the most harmful types of content—those that could intimidate or deceive people into surrendering their right to participate in a civic process—and not censoring political debate,” they continued.
Of course, the decision to open the doors to political candidates who want to convey their message in this way adds an extra layer of discourse to the primary process and, of course, to the 2024 presidential elections.
