Twitter rolls out new political ad policies, will exempt news outlets

Twitter said that it would begin requiring some organizations that purchase political ads on topics such as abortion, health-care reform and immigration to disclose more information about themselves to users, part of the tech giant’s attempt to thwart bad actors, including Russia, from spreading propaganda ahead of the 2018 election. The new policy targets promoted tweets that mention candidates or advocate on “legislative issues of national importance,” Twitter executives said. To purchase these ads, individuals and groups must verify their identities. If approved, their ads then would be specially labeled in users’ timelines and preserved online for the public to view. And promoted tweets, and the accounts behind them, would be required disclose the name of the actual organization that purchased the ad in the first place.

The policy changes will affect advocacy groups and candidates seeking public office. As opposed to Facebook, Twitter says news outlets get an exemption for promoted tweets that involve political content. Publications eligible to apply for exemption must meet criteria such as having more than 200,000 monthly unique visitors to their site, displaying available contact and "about" information online and having a searchable archive. “We don’t believe that news organizations running ads on Twitter that report on these issues, rather than advocate for or against them, should be subject to this policy,” wrote Twitter executives. The policies are set to go into effect on Sept 30 in the U.S.