Tweet No Evil - Twitter Bans Political Ads

Something incredible happened to the ethics in technology in late October 2019.

As Facebook's reported earnings beat, Twitter announced it would ban political advertising. The pressure on Facebook is ramping up, that does not fact-check or censor hate-speech or misinformation in ads is clearly on the wrong side of history.

Ads should not be used for evil, basically.

It also makes Jack Dorsey looks like a hero at a time when Twitter's performance has been dismal. So this is partly a PR stunt.

Twitter is the platform where many politicians do their own variety of paid and viral marketing that gets a lot of attention in the United States. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders among others do very well on it, including AOC who is maybe the most skilled at organic reach and viral marketing on Twitter.

While TikTok has said no to political Ads, Instagram is the new junkyard for ads. Twitter is a small piece of the pie, and it puts pressure on Facebook to better moderate itself as ads must be used in a more moderated way so as not to repeat the mistakes of 2016, where hacking a few swing states was relatively easy for foreign bad actors.

While Facebook prospers from chaos and discord created by political Ads, Twitter doesn't earn as much and wants to be a more trusted platform. Jack is right though on an ethical level, messages should be earned and not just bought. Capitalism's information architecture needs to be re-thought. This is an important development for that.

Silicon Valley you remember is not a very ethical place. It wasn't so long ago that misleading political ads on social media burst into the spotlight during the 2016 presidential election when Russian agents took out thousands of ads on Facebook in an attempt to sow political division and influence the election. It was brutal and led to Donald Trump who for all his good points, is likely the most dishonest President in American history (on a fact-checking basis).

Technology platforms needs to take more responsibility.

It's Twitter vs. Facebook and it's clear which platform does more evil to America. Twitter is no playground though, it's full of trolls, bad behavior, and toxic communication. However, they are making an effort to reduce bots, fake accounts, and violations of their Terms of Service.

There is a dark side to Ads for profit. When Chief executive Mark Zuckerberg told Congress last week that politicians have the right to free speech on Facebook it was cringe worthy to see his profits driven emphasis on "free speech".

American institutions are already suffering a trust crisis, and protests around the world are on the uptick. The world is in unrest and hate speech or misinformation in political Ads are the last thing we need for the planet.

Gaming of algorithms and the ability of platforms to moderate means most of these platforms are toxic by default. Oddly though, Facebook is being stubborn on this issue attempting to side with "Free Speech". It does not want to make any concessions that could impact its cash-cow mobile advertising reach.

Twitter made less than $3 million on Political Ads in 2018 so this move could be seen by Jack as a PR move to make Twitter look like it cares in an era when it missed earnings and had poor guidance following a product error related to its ads and privacy settings.

We talk about censorship in the Chinese Internet, but the American internet has been toxic for quite some time. Not allowing for paid disinformation is one of the most basic, ethical decisions a company can make to hope to improve that, as small as Twitter is, it's something.

Facebook should not be profiting from American discord, like a pharma company profits from people getting sick. It's pretty malevolent in its policies regarding this topic and Elizabeth Warren and Congress have been successful in attacking it. Facebook really fails hard in PR and eliciting trust and is having a harder time retaining talent in 2019.

Zuckerberg also argues that Google, YouTube, some cable networks and national broadcasters run “these same ads.” That is true, the entire advertising network is basically morally corrupt on political Ads and the legislation needs to be changed. Twitter can take a small step to look good, but it's still the right thing to do.

Twitter will still do evil, with a toxic community that's not moderated well and a President that can make insulting, threatening and dangerous remarks without being moderated, but at least there won't be paid political Ads.

Silicon Valley grows a conscience only in baby steps mostly when there is pressure internally among its own employees to do so. Of course, Mark isn't listening to Facebook employees on this one, he doesn't run Facebook with corporate social responsibility standards.