Twitter reverses its 2019 ban on political ads 

EVEN the casual observer these days can tell that Twitter and everything related to it is becoming the news in itself. With Elon Musk in the saddle, the world has divided up neatly into pro-Musk and anti-Musk camps. Literally everything from @elonmusk is amplified, dissected, and commented upon by the entire media universe. Until his next tweet, which then goes through the same cycle all over again.

Now there is much noise being made of late about Twitter’s move to expand the types of political advertising on the platform. In light of everything that has been happening at Twitter over the past months, it is not surprising that the conversation has spontaneously lit up and polarised everyone on yet another Twitter-related issue. Given the tone of our political conversations over the past few years, it is natural to be alarmed about political advertising on a platform with already so much political content and polarisation. But is that what Twitter is doing with their ads policy?

Proposed expansion is in fact, a good thing

If we look beyond the headlines, the fact is that Twitter is expanding its advertising policy to allow cause-based advertising on the platform. For example, ads related to education, voters’ rights, climate change, civic engagement, etc. They will now be carried after they go through a certification process. Is this not a good thing?