Twitter announced that it will reverse a ban on political advertising that it had in place for more than three years in an attempt to increase the company's revenue. Since Elon Musk became the head of the social network, there have been numerous changes, and the company has become a recurring topic of conversation. This Wednesday was no exception, as Ella Irwin, Twitter's Head of Trust and Safety, confirmed that political advertisements will be permitted once again.
On Tuesday, the company announced from its @TwitterSafety account that the intention is to align political advertising options to those of other media such as television or radio.
Moving forward, we will align our advertising policy with that of TV and other media outlets. 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.
— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) January 3, 2023
However, it was clarified that content review and approval approaches needed to be reviewed first to protect users. "We believe that cause-based advertising can facilitate public conversation around important topics," the safety team’s official account shared.
A source of income
Twitter has been looking for ways to decrease its expenses and increase revenue, and this could be one way to do it. According to CNN, political advertising had not been a major source of revenue for the company. In fact, in 2018, just one year before the ban was implemented, the company earned less than $3 million on these types of ads. However, since Elon Musk took over as CEO of Twitter, he has made it clear that that any decision that improves the company's finances is welcome.
The CEO of the social network has already made a reduction of workers amounting to approximately 50% of its overall workforce and is auctioning off the furniture and office equipment that was used by the more than 7,500 laid-off employees. It was also recently announced that Musk stopped paying some office rent and utilities. He even eliminated janitorial services from the facilities and asked its employees to bring their own toilet paper to work.
As reported by Hipertextual, Twitter saved around $500 million in "non-labor costs" from the beginning of November to the end of December and could continue to make adjustments as the company's profitability grows.
