“We believe that cause-based advertising can facilitate public conversation around important topics. Today, we’re relaxing our ads policy for cause-based ads in the US. We also plan to expand the political advertising we permit in the coming weeks,” the tweet said.
A second tweet clarified that the company would first ensure that its approach “to reviewing and approving content protects people on Twitter.”
Twitter did not respond to a request for comment.
Twitter has long taken what it described as a principled stance against political advertising. When then-CEO Jack Dorsey announced the political ads bans in 2019, he said it was because he strongly believed that political messaging “should be earned, not bought.” That language was then posted on the company’s website, and was still there as of Tuesday afternoon.
The sudden reversal was characteristic of the slapdash and chaotic manner in which Twitter is being run under its new owner, billionaire Elon Musk. The company announced the change and promised to “share more details” as the work got underway. There was no explanation of why Twitter made the changes or how extensive the changes would be.
While Twitter was always a marginal player in political advertising compared with Google or Facebook, Tuesday’s move will enable political groups and figures to promote themselves in upcoming electoral contests.
Politicians and advocacy groups have previously complained that limiting all that type of advertising because some contains misinformation is unfair. Facebook went in the opposite direction ahead of the 2020 election, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg arguing that it was not the company’s responsibility to fact-check political ads, and that such ads would be allowed to run on the service.
Political ads were also relatively inconsequential for Twitter’s overall business. At the time of the ads ban, the company’s chief financial officer said that political ads brought in roughly $3 million in revenue — a tiny fraction of a multibillion dollar ad business on the platform.
