USA – Twitter is banning political ads. Nonprofits like mine could suffer.

Twitter is banning political ads. Nonprofits like mine could suffer.
The platform’s latest policy could make it harder to combat misinformation.

By Lizz Winstead
Nov 20, 2019

Last month, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey announced his platform would not only start banning political ads, but also ads about issues like climate change, immigration, and abortion.

In typical knee-jerk fashion, cable news pundits and even Democrats praised Twitter’s move as a game-changing, responsible action that will distinguish it from Facebook’s numb-founding decision to decline to fact-check its political ads, thereby allowing politicians to pay for posts that promote any wild accusation or debunked conspiracy theory. But activists saw the bigger picture. As the founder of the Abortion Access Front, Twitter’s announced policy would have killed our nonprofit’s ability to pay for ads that promote our shows, rallies, and actions where we push back against dishonest anti-abortion rhetoric with facts.

Continued: https://www.vox.com/first-person/2019/11/20/20972343/twitter-ban-political-ads