Elizabeth Warren slams Twitter for a policy that bans ads from groups fighting climate change

Authored by cnbc.com and submitted by Augie-Morosco
image for Elizabeth Warren slams Twitter for a policy that bans ads from groups fighting climate change

Elizabeth Warren is proving to be an equal opportunist when it comes to taking on social media companies.

On Tuesday, Sen. Warren, who's running for president, slammed Twitter's new ad policy that bans political ads. In a series of tweets on Tuesday, the Massachusetts Democrat attacked the company for blocking organizations that are fighting climate change from running ads on the social network while allowing ads from companies like Exxon on the same topic.

Her criticism comes a week after Twitter said it would no longer allow political ads on its service, a policy that blocks ads from politicians, ads that refer to an election or candidate or ads related to politically-sensitive issues.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey responded to Warren with a tweet on Tuesday, saying that the company will announce the specifics of its new ad policies on Nov. 15.

Warren has been on a crusade against Big Tech throughout her presidential campaign. In March, she proposed the breakup of companies like Facebook and Amazon, and last month she criticized Facebook for its own political ad policies, which allow candidates to run ads that include false information.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has defended his company's political ads policy, saying in a speech at Georgetown University that "banning political ads favors incumbents and whoever the media covers." Separately, he told Facebook employees that he would "go to the mat" and fight against anyone trying to break up the company, according to leaked audio that was published by The Verge.

This was Warren's first time to publicly go after Twitter's stance on political ads.

Part of Twitter's policy bans "ads that advocate for or against legislative issues of national importance (such as: climate change, healthcare, immigration, national security, taxes)," according to a tweet from Vijaya Gadde, Twitter's lead for legal, public policy and trust and safety lead.

Twitter did not respond to a request for comment.

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skilliard7 on November 6th, 2019 at 05:26 UTC »

Knew this would happen, actually called it the moment they announced their policy. Twitter has forbidden all political ads. What counts as "political" is very subjective. People love to claim their issue is "settled" when in their favor, but when their opponents advertise its political.

The only way you can identify if an ad is truly political via objective means(meaning a specific criteria) is if it is a call to enact a government policy, or elect a candidate.(and even that can be subjective)

Telling people to vote for politicians that will vote for a given policy is political advertising - you're trying to directly influence policy which is exactly what politics is.

A company posting an ad with information on what it's doing to address climate issues or correctly misconceptions about their industry is not a direct call to action for policy.

lrg1ne on November 6th, 2019 at 03:44 UTC »

If the rules aren’t announced until Nov 15, is anything even different on Twitter?

Or is everyone jumping the gun here?

Blueberry_Mancakes on November 6th, 2019 at 03:22 UTC »

There's no winning this thing. Any new set of rules will immediately be exploited for loopholes, and a large portion of people will be outraged. On the other hand, inaction will also be seen as unacceptable. Social media is on the front lines of a political meltdown.