Twitter will ban all politicians from advertising on its platform, but it will make a few exceptions for news publishers and causes

Reuters

Twitter will not allow ads from politicians on its platform.

• Twitter announced additional details about its plan to ban all political ads on its social network.
• The policy prohibits any ads mentioning political candidates, elections, and ballot measures, but exempts news publishers and certain "cause-based" ads.
• Twitter's decision was a jab at Facebook, which said it will not fact-check political ads on its platform.
• Questions still remain about how Twitter will enforce the new policy.
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Twitter has released additional details surrounding its new ban on political ads on the platform, Vijaya Gadde, the company's head of trust and safety, said in a tweet Friday.

The policy prohibits any content mentioning "a candidate, political party, elected or appointed government official, election, referendum, ballot measure, legislation, regulation, directive, or judicial outcome," and includes ads from political candidates, parties, and PACs.

However, Twitter will exempt news publishers and certain "cause-based" ads run by organizations that have undergone its certification process, in an apparent attempt to address a concern raised by politicians like Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Sen. Ted Cruz about how the policy might affect issue ads.

Twitter's policy puts the company in stark contrast to Facebook, which has said it will not fact-check political ads run on its platform.

In explaining Twitter's rationale for the policy, Gadde cited the power of paid political ads and micro-targeting, which she said "brings significant risks to politics, where it can be used to influence votes to affect the lives of millions."

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey echoed that point when he announced the change via Twitter in October, saying that "political message reach should be earned, not bought." At the time, however, the company offered few details about how it planned to define paid political content or enforce the ban.

While Twitter's latest announcement offered more specifics on how it will define political ads, it remains to be seen how the company will enforce the policy in practice.