Washington: Twitter said Wednesday it would stop accepting political advertising globally on its platform, responding to growing concerns over misinformation from politicians on social media.
Chief executive Jack Dorsey tweeted that while internet advertising "is incredibly powerful and very effective for commercial advertisers, that power brings significant risks to politics, where it can be used to influence votes to affect the lives of millions."
The move comes with Facebook under pressure to apply fact-checking to politicians running ads with debunked claims.
Dorsey said the new policy, details of which will be unveiled next month and enforced from November 22, would ban ads on political issues as well as from candidates. "We considered stopping only candidate ads, but issue ads present a way to circumvent," he said.
"Additionally, it isn't fair for everyone but candidates to buy ads for issues they want to push. So we're stopping these too." Dorsey said the company took the action to head off potential problems from "machine learning-based optimisation of messaging and micro-targeting, unchecked misleading information, and deep fakes."
Twitter's move comes in contrast to the Facebook policy that allows political speech and ads to run without fact-checking on the leading social network.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said political advertising is not a major source of revenue but adds that he believes it is important to allow everyone a "voice," and that banning political ads would favor incumbents.
Dorsey said he disagreed with Zuckerberg's assessment.
"We have witnessed many social movements reach massive scale without any political advertising. I trust this will only grow," he added. "This is the right thing to do for democracy in America and all over the world," 2016 US Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton tweeted.
"What say you, @Facebook ?" she asked, calling out the other social media giant. Twitter's chief financial officer Ned Segal said the move would have little financial impact.
"Since we are getting questions: This decision was based on principle, not money," he said. "As context, we've disclosed that political ad spend for the 2018 US midterms was (less than) 3M."
Social media platforms have been challenged by President Donald Trump's campaign and its use of ads that contain claims critics say have been debunked by independent fact-checkers.
"Twitter just walked away from hundreds of millions of dollars of potential revenue, a very dumb decision for their stockholders," Trump 2020 campaign manager Brad Parscale said.
"Will Twitter also be stopping ads from biased liberal media outlets who will now run unchecked as they buy obvious political content meant to attack Republicans?" Democrats have stepped up pressure on Facebook to remove political ads, and a group of employees has also called for stronger efforts by the social network to clamp down on "civic misinformation" from politicians.
Other initial reactions to the Twitter announcement was positive.
"Until privately-owned social media platforms can develop and consistently enforce standards to prevent demonstrably inaccurate information in political advertising, this is the right move," said Michelle Amazeen, a Boston University professor specializing in political communication.
Nina Jankowicz, a Wilson Center fellow specializing in disinformation, also welcomed the decision. "It's great that this move has been made globally and not just within the United States," she said.
"Too often these companies operate in a cloud of willful ignorance about the effects their products have outside our borders." Jankowicz said the decision could level the playing field by preventing wealthier candidates and groups dominating the social conversation.
"Paid speech essentially quashes some groups' ability to speak out and be heard because they can't compete with the reach that their richer counterparts pay for," she said.
More cautiously, eMarketer senior analyst Jasmine Enberg said it remained unclear how much impact the change would have, given that political advertising is not a major part of Twitter's core business.
"And given the nature of the platform, people, publishers and politicians will still use Twitter to discuss politics organically, meaning that it won't fully solve the problem of misinformation," Enberg said.
Syracuse University professor Jennifer Grygiel also was skeptical, noting in a tweet: "Twitter has promised lots of things in the past that they haven't delivered on.
"We have to wait and see how effective the new political policy will be."
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Jaipur, Mar 28: Young Riyan Parag showed why he is considered a precocious talent as he struck a stunning 84 not out off 45 balls to set up a 12-run win for Rajasthan Royals against Delhi Capitals in their IPL match here on Thursday.
Sent in to bat, RR were reduced to 36 for 3 in the eighth over but the 22-year-old Parag single-handedly took the home side to 185 for 5 with a magnificent unbeaten knock studded with seven fours and six sixes.
Parag, who was promoted to number 4 by the team management this season and made 43 in the previous match, took 25 runs off veteran South African pacer Anrich Nortje with scores of 4, 4, 6, 4, 6, 1 in the final over to hit his highest T20 score.
Chasing 186 for a win, DC could only manage 173 for 5 in 20 overs though South African youngster Tristan Stubbs (44 not out off 23 balls) kept them in the hunt till the final over from which they needed 17 runs.
Avesh Khan conceded just four runs to help RR win their second consecutive match.
South African pacer Nandre Burger and Yuzvendra Chahal took two wickets apiece to also contribute in the RR win.
"Definitely disappointed. The best thing to do from here is to learn from it. The bowlers did well through the 15-16 overs. But the batters did well at the death, hopefully we do better in the next game," DC skipper Rishabh Pant said.
DC were reduced to 34 for 2 in the fourth over with Burger taking two wickets in three balls in a fine display of fast bowling.
Burger, who was brought in as Impact Sub for Shimron Hetmyer, dismissed opener Mitchell Marsh (23 off 12 balls) and Ricky Bhui (0) in the fourth over.
DC captain Rishabh Pant came out to bat at the fall of Bhui's wicket and along with senior batter David Warner built the innings without taking too much risk. Delhi were 89 for 2 at the halfway stage.
Warner was the more aggressive one as he got the boundaries to keep DC in the hunt. The senior Australian batter fell one run short of his fifty courtesy a brilliant diving catch by Sandeep Sharma off the bowling of Avesh in the 12th over.
Warner and Pant were involved in a crucial 67-run partnership for the third wicket.
Playing in his 100th IPL match and 14 months after a horrible car crash, Pant tried to build the innings with occasional boundaries. But he got out for a 26-ball 28 as Chahal induced a faint lower edge for Sanju Samson to do the rest behind the stumps in the 14th over.
The asking rate shot up to more than 13 runs an over and DC needed 66 from the last five overs.
Stubbs kept DC in the game with two consecutive sixes off Ravichandran Ashwin in the 17th over, but in the end the Delhi side were short by 12 runs.
They needed 34 runs from the final two overs which they could not get. It was DC's second consecutive loss.
Earlier, Parag shared 54 and 52 runs respectively with Ravichandran Ashwin (29) and Dhruv Jurel (20) after RR made a shaky start.
Royals captain Samson struck three consecutive boundaries in the fourth over bowled by pacer Mukesh Kumar before nicking a Khaleel Ahmed delivery two overs later to Pant to get out for 15.
RR were 30 for 2 by then as Mukesh had given DC their first breakthrough with the wicket of Yashasvi Jaiswal (5).
The Royals were in more trouble after wrist spinner Kuldeep Yadav literally forced his captain Pant to take a review, which later proved to be successful, to dismiss Englishman Jos Buttler for an LBW decision.
Ashwin came out to bat at number five and he lofted a Kuldeep delivery for a six to help RR reach 58 for 3 at halfway stage. He gave Nortje even a harsher treatment with two sixes in the next over that yielded 15 runs.
Ashwin, however, holed out to Tristan Stubbs near the boundary ropes for a 19-ball 29.
Parag then made his presence felt, striking two boundaries and a six off Ahmed to take RR past 100 in the 15th over.