Twitter Caves: Announces Plan To Improve “Transparency” For Political Ads
by Tyler Durden
ZeroHedfe.com
Oct 24, 2017
One week before Twitter executives are slated to testify before the Senate and House Intelligence Committees, the company has bowed to pressure from lawmakers and announced it will soon begin providing users with more information about political advertising appearing on its platform, CNBC reported.
Bruce Falck, Twitter’s GM of revenue, product and engineering, made the announcement in a blog post published this afternoon. The policy – which is meant to provide “greater transparency” for Twitter’s user base – will apply to “issue-based” ads, as well as ads supporting a given candidate. The company has also said it will be “improving controls” and “adopting stricter advertising policies.” To achieve this Twitter will launch a “transparency center” that will reveal who is advertising on Twitter, details behind the ads, and tools for users to share feedback with the company.
Specifically, the transparency center will show:
All ads that are currently running on Twitter, including Promoted-Only ads
How long ads have been running
Ad creative associated with those campaigns
Ads targeted to you, as well as personalized information on which ads you are eligible to receive based on targeting
Twitter’s decision comes one week after Senators Mark Warner (D-VA), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and John McCain (R-AZ) and Representatives Derek Kilmer (D-WA), and Mike Coffman (R-CO) introduced the Honest Ads Act legislation – a bill meant to prevent “foreign influences” from manipulating US social media platforms to influence elections.
While Twitter says it’s still working on a definition for what constitutes an “issue-based” advertisement, its transparency center will include a special section specifically dedicated to “electioneering” ads.
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