Twitter has now banned political ads on its website in an effort to eliminate voter manipulation — however, they should still allow for campaigning on their site.
Twitter wants to prohibit information on their platform relating to politics that could be false or misleading. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said in a tweet that a political message should not be bought.
Dorsey surprised many when he announced Twitter’s decision. Dorsey allows racism, violence and hateful attacks on certain groups on his platform, according to Vanity Fair Magazine, yet campaign ads are where he chooses to draw the line.
“This decision was based on principle, not money,” Dorsey said, according to CNN.
Political speech should not be interfered with by social media platforms. Social media platforms are just that — platforms. They are there to allow the distribution of content by others and are not responsible for posted misinformation, according to Fox News.
If social media platforms were formally published, it would be a different story. Twitter is not held responsible for false information in political ads, according to Twitter Terms of Service, so they should not eliminate such ads.
Political ads on Twitter spread awareness about certain candidates or issues from a biased perspective, according to the New Yorker. Because of this, voters should know they need to be cautious and not accept the message in a political ad as 100 percent truth.
Voters should not believe everything they see coming from a candidate’s campaign ads — instead, they need to do further research. A campaign ad that does not tell the whole truth does not justify ads being completely eliminated from social media platforms.
Although Dorsey admits that Twitter has more liberal employees than conservative, he maintains his belief that the platform is unbiased, according to Vox. It is possible that this political leaning has an impact on why political ads are now banned.
While the ban includes all political ads — not exclusively for the Democratic or Republican party — Trump 2020 campaign manager Brad Parscale accused the ban as “yet another attempt to silence conservatives, since Twitter knows President Trump has the most sophisticated online program ever known,” according to the Verge.
Twitter has the right to ban political ads, but they should not take part in it. They will lose profits in the process, according to CNN, and less popular candidates will be at a disadvantage without the use of political ads.
Social media platforms are vital to campaigning, but with Twitter banning political ads, it has gotten increasingly more difficult to those near the bottom of the polls.
