Twitter’s ban on political advertisements hurts our democracy

Twitter recently announced that it will no longer allow political advertisements on its digital platform. Implementation of this decision, if possible at all, will have dire consequences for American democracy. Defining a political advertisement is nearly impossible. And social media helps under-funded candidates. And Twitter's ban will not eliminate disinformation. 

We already have readily available databases of advertisements that are aired on TV or radio. It is technically simple to have social media companies build similar databases about the political advertisements on their platforms. Congress has already taken steps towards this direction through bills like the Honest Ads Act, which requires an “online platform [to] maintain, and make available for online public inspection in machine readable format, a complete record of any request to purchase [political advertisements] on such online platform.” Improved ad transparency would help fight disinformation and give voters the information they need to protect their interests.

[Niam Yaraghi is a nonresident fellow in the Brookings Institution's Center for Technology Innovation and an assistant professor of Operations and Information Management at University of Connecticut's School of Business]