Twitter has just announced that they will be launching their very own Advertising Transparency Center in the coming weeks. This new center will fully disclose information on Twitter Ad Campaigns that are politically associated. Although this interactive tool will provide background information on all ads shown on Twitter, its primary focus is political ads and issue-based ads.
This strategy is in response to the recently proposed “Honest Ads Act” introduced last Thursday. The purpose of this bill is to, “enhance the integrity of American democracy and national security by improving disclosure requirements for online political advertisements in order to uphold the United States Supreme Court’s well-established standard that the electorate bears the right to be fully informed.” This isn’t a policy strictly affecting social media but will alter the experiences of over 50 million internet users on websites, apps, search engines and elsewhere.
Twitter has been feeling pressure from legislators since 2016 when they were accused of allowing Russian Intel to interfere with the American Presidential Election. More recently, the social platform has vowed for total transparency following the 1-day boycott over Hollywood mogul, Harvey Weinstein. Twitter has released details on how their Ad Transparency Center will tackle issues of national security.
The Center will offer the following:
- All ads that are currently running on Twitter, including Promoted-Only ads
- How long ads have been running
- Ad creative associated with those campaigns
- Ads targeted to you, as well as personalized information on which ads you are eligible to receive based on targeting
- Report inappropriate ads/provide feedback on ads
They have also identified political content by referring to them as “electioneering” ads. These ads will display differently and include a visual political ad indicator. Twitter’s Transparency Center will allow users to see the total budget for electioneering ad campaigns, company information, target demographics and historical data. There will also be stricter guidelines for people wanting to run political ads and harsher policies for users that violate advertising terms.
Twitter also says that they will provide minimal information on non-political ads such as the total campaign duration along with seeing which types of ads are targeting them. They will continue to narrow the definition of issue-based ads to meet the demands of curving inappropriate content and offer a more enjoyable experience for their users. Twitter plans to keep capitalizing on these concepts saying, “We will make these updates first in the U.S., and then roll them out globally. We will share our progress here with all of you along the way.”
Do you guys think this is an adequate response to the demands of U.S. Legislators or is it a tad overboard? Let us know what you think and we’ll be sure to update you when the live version is available.
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