Twitter reacts, bans all political advertising

Twitter, reacting to growing concern about misinformation spread on social media, is banning all political advertising from its service. Its move sets it apart from Facebook, which continues to defend running paid political ads, even false ones, as a free speech priority.

“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,” Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said Wednesday in a series of tweets announcing the new policy.

Facebook has taken fire since it disclosed earlier in October that it will not factcheck ads by politicians or their campaigns, which could allow them to lie freely. CEO Mark Zuckerberg told Congress last week that politicians have the right to free speech on Facebook.

In Facebook’s earnings conference call — which began less than an hour after Dorsey’s tweet — Zuckerberg issued an impassioned monologue about what he called Facebook’s deep belief “that political speech is important” and stood by the company’s decision to run unchecked political ads. He denied this choice is financially motivated, saying such ads make up less than half of a percent of the company’s revenue.

To put that in perspective, he added, Facebook’s recent $5 billion Federal Trade Commission fine was more than 10 times that.