Twitter recently updated its advertising policy and one of the most topical changes is the tech giant’s decision to no longer accept adverts from state media news entities:
Today, we are updating our advertising policies with respect to state media. Going forward, we will not accept advertising from state-controlled news media entities. Any affected accounts will be free to continue to use Twitter to engage in public conversation, just not our advertising products.
Twitter blog
Twitter says this will be a global approach meaning even local state media outlets such as Zimpapers and ZBC will be affected – though it doesn’t appear ads on Twitter were a significant part of their user acquisition strategy presently.
How will state media be defined? Twitter classifies state media as ” news media entities that are either financially or editorially controlled by the state”.
Twitter will be notifying directly affected outlets in the coming days. They will have 30 days to offboard from Twitter’s ad products, after which Twitter will “enforce” the policies. In the meantime, no new campaigns will be allowed.
Most importantly, why is Twitter doing this? Well here’s their own response in full:
We want to protect healthy discourse and open conversation. To that end, we believe that there is a difference between engaging in conversation with accounts you choose to follow and the content you see from advertisers in your Twitter experience which may be from accounts you’re not currently following. We have policies for both but we have higher standards for our advertisers.
Twitter statement
This policy will not apply to taxpayer-funded entities, including independent public broadcasters.
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