WASHINGTON – After Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey declared on Wednesday that his company would no longer run political ads, President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign denounced the move, while several 2020 Democratic presidential candidates lauded the decision.
“We believe political message reach should be earned, not bought,” Dorsey said when he announced the move.
“Twitter just walked away from hundreds of millions of dollars of potential revenue, a very dumb decision for their stockholders,” Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale responded.
Parscale expressed doubt that Twitter would apply the policy fairly across political ideologies and called it “another attempt to silence conservatives, since Twitter knows President Trump has the most sophisticated online program ever known.”
In contrast, former Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign manager, Bill Russo, lamented that Twitter felt it had to take such drastic action, but applauded the decision as an example of a private enterprise putting principle ahead of profit.
“We appreciate that Twitter recognizes that they should not permit disproven smears, like those from the Trump campaign, to appear in advertisements on their platform,” Russo said in a statement.
“It would be unfortunate to suggest that the only option available to social media companies to do so is the full withdrawal of political advertising, but when faced with a choice between ad dollars and the integrity of our democracy, it is encouraging that, for once, revenue did not win out,” he said.
Political advertising has been a difficult issue for social media companies, particularly since former special counsel Robert Mueller revealed that Russian operatives had purchased Facebook ads in its efforts to sway the 2016 election.
The issue resurfaced in September when Twitter, along with Facebook and Google, refused to remove a misleading video ad from Trump’s campaign that targeted Biden.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, another leading Democratic primary candidate, ran an ad on Facebook claiming that the company’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg had endorsed Trump for reelection. She said she used the deliberate falsehood to illustrate the problem she sees with Zuckerberg’s position that it is not his company’s role to regulate political content.
Speaking to reporters in New Hampshire, South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg called it a “bold step” that reflects a “sense of responsibility.”
“I think other online platforms would do well to either accept their responsibility for truth or question whether they should be in the business at all,” he said.
Montana Gov. Steve Bullock said, “Good. Your turn, Facebook,” in reply to Dorsey’s announcement.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, who is also seeking the Democratic nomination, said in a statement that social media companies “like Twitter and Facebook have an obligation to the public to ensure that their platforms aren’t being manipulated to spread misinformation.” She called for Congress to pass legislation that would put “consistent rules of the road in place for all political ads.”
Klobuchar said the Honest Ads Act she introduced with Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Mark Warner, D-Va., would accomplish that goal.
Contributing: Jefferson Graham and Savannah Behrmann, USA TODAY; The Associated Press
Source Article from https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2019/10/31/twitter-political-ad-ban-bashed-trump-campaign-lauded-2020-dems/4109354002/
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